


Deconstruct, a Memoir

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drama, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-21
Updated: 2007-09-07
Packaged: 2019-01-19 23:22:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 127,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12420366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: Before they were legends, there was a girl who loved a boy she thought she could never be with. She followed him into a world of strange purity, entranced by his dizzy eyes, and left everything she knew behind. He deconstructed her, one molecule at a time. [AU Lily & James. Original work from 2002. WIP.]





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

  
Author's notes: 1  


* * *

 

**Deconstruct, a Memoir**

By Solarism

_Prologue_

I was conceived, now, down south and somewhat east of the Mississippi River in a state the Americans like to call Georgia. My mother was this petite little British thing, very dainty with auburn curls and sweet blue eyes, so my father, an American, fell straight away in love with her when she came to town, visiting her sick cousin like she did. The trouble was, my mother’s parents would have nothing to do with her marrying outside of her home country, England. (They were probably afraid they’d lose her to the slow-talking Southerner that was her beau, to tell the truth, and really rightly so.) Mother was a very nice little Catholic girl, pleated plaid skirt and all, so of course up until that point she always did everything her parents told her to do.

Father, however, was quite the catch. He was an heir to a huge fortune it seems, with suave and debonair looks that absolutely enamored my mother. He continued to court her against her parents’ wishes and soon she was very much in love with him and his handsome, masculine agenda. By that point, she had a choice to make, see, between everything she had ever known and this new, excruciating love. Sweet as she was, indecisiveness seemed to be quite a major part of her early personality as well, and Mother spent the night with my father, eventually bearing my sister, and then spent the night with him _again_ before deciding that it was a terrible sin to be in love as much as she was. She flew back to England the following Saturday, full of repentance, sin, and terrible inner-turmoil, my older sister in tow. What she didn’t know, of course, was that she was pregnant by that time with little old me. The rest, as they say, is history.

When I was a very little girl, I used to imagine my father as some fancy millionaire who always swaggered around in a romantic tuxedo, but as I grew older, that fantasy was replaced with the realization that my mother’s mistake was bringing me into existence, and the absence of my father’s presence only proved that he considered it his mistake, too. 

It wasn’t that my mother was ever really downright cruel to me, however; she didn’t have to be. Her actions and everyone else’s words spoke loudly enough to confirm all of my worst and most shameful fears. For instance, before I was old enough to realize what was going on, she used to shove me off on a governess for weeks upon weeks so that she wouldn’t have to deal with the fact that she, Margaret Evans, had disgraced our elite, London social sphere by going off to America and… yes, well, that was such a pity, wasn’t it? Eventually, it got so bad that whenever I did something wrong, she would lock herself in her room and cry for days, convinced that God had cursed her through me for her sinning.

Oddly enough, when I was grown--oh, when I was eighteen or so, and already happily engaged to a tuxedo-swaggering man of my own--she took to drinking her woes away, as if _that_ didn’t constitute being a bad Catholic. Ultimately I was her demise, because she did all that she did because of me, and because drinking was what she did and because drinking was what ruptured her liver, I killed her, I suppose you could say. And, to be honest with you, I’ve never really gotten over that.

Oh, how _dead_ that house was, the little two-story with the no-good-brown-grass and the horrific-smell-in-the-attic! I don’t believe, for all my naïveté, that I completely started _living_ until I turned eleven years old and was finally able to escape to Hogwarts and into a world my mother couldn’t touch. That house and those people stifled me, made me into something only half-real and a person only existing, half-alive. It took me a long time to forgive them for it. I still haven’t been back, after all of this time, to visit the staircases and the rose bushes, the polished wood floorboards and the scrubbed bathroom mirrors. I’ve always been afraid of what I’d find there--strands of my old hair, maybe, still clinging to the linen that we left to sit stagnant in the cabinets after my mother’s passing. I don’t know. I’ve never known.

I still remember the day that everything fell truly apart. When she read my Hogwarts letter, so prestigiously written in green ink as to match my eyes (my father’s eyes), my mother burst into hysterics and locked herself in her bedroom for days. Petunia, left awkwardly alone with me, someone she had hardly ever had cause to speak to, was dumbstruck. I’ll never forget the ominous, revelatory look that appeared on her face as she first realized that I, little wretch of an urchin that I was, was an actual _witch_. Perhaps she finally took a page out of my mother’s book during that second, because from that day forward, she regarded me as something disgusting one of her cats had nipped in after a hunt.

The stories I could tell…

But none of this is the point.

What I’m trying to write about here is my true away from that false life, the golden years in which I attended Hogwarts and finally took my first living, dreaming, glorious breath. 

I met a young boy called James Potter my very first year there, and, my God, was he a firecracker if there ever was one! The boy had been living life eleven years longer than I had, and therefore was to be marveled at with a sort of silent awe, regardless if I would ever admit that to him or not. His eyes danced practically as much as his feet did, and he babbled on endlessly about these close-shaves and near-deaths that I could never even begin to fathom. He was my idol, I suppose you could say, no matter how envious I was of all the love he seemed to always have in his life.

James was in my house, Gryffindor, so I naturally saw a lot of him around the castle. We shared the same classes in those early years, though we almost never sat on the same side of the classroom. As a pureblood, he wasn’t nearly so interested in magic as me, and always preferred the back of the room. I made sure to sit in the front row; it was just what I always did, had always done. He had his friends and I had mine, anyway—none of it would have mixed properly (or at least that was what I always told myself privately). 

Those kind of circumstances, however, meant that we were never formerly introduced until our fourth year.

My other idol was Arabella Figg. Although completely unlike James, I knew her much better than him and had been intimate friends with her since the first day of our first year when we were both sorted into Gryffindor, one right after the other. I admired her because not only was she beautiful, she was also a positively brilliant witch. I have never met anyone who could brew a potion as well as she could, to this day, besides perhaps James’s friend, Sirius Black. Arabella was indeed a perfectionist, and infinitely more worldly than I was, but still a wilting little flower, set in her ways. I guess you could say she was everything I wanted to be, but doubted I could ever achieve.

These two people molded me, even if they never knew it, and I am the way that I am today because of them--not because of any mother, or any non-father, or any stubborn, bull-headed and cruel sister. I have them to thank for my success, my good fortune, and my joy in life. From Arabella I learned beauty, intelligence, and perfection--the richer side of life, you could call it. James gave me the flip side, the freaky-deeky wild one, in which the entire world is a giant prank waiting to be pulled. You only live once, so why not make your one chance at breath count? That was what he preached, that was what he taught, and that was what James Potter _lived_.

Perhaps one of the best things about James was that he played Quidditch.

Although I was always too afraid of provoking my mother by trying out to be on our House team, my apprehension didn’t prevent me from showing up religiously for every match with Arabella at my side, cheering on James and Sirius and Remus Lupin. (Sirius and Remus were, along with another boy named Peter Pettigrew, James’s best friends in the world.) I loved Quidditch equally as much as they did, even if I couldn’t be out there slamming bludgers around with them, but knowing that my passion was James’s passion too was enough for me. Throughout my years at Hogwarts, first year on up to seventh, that old Quidditch field was a big part of my life. I kissed on it, I had my first real laugh on it, I almost got killed on it, and I, naturally, spit on it once or twice. This is where my story begins, out on the Quidditch field, perfectly in the center of it, doing my homework and eating a cupcake.

It was a bright September afternoon that I was first formerly introduced to James Potter, and that was it--the turning point of entire my _life_. Welcome to my fourth year at Hogwarts, and welcome to my world. 

My name is Lily and I kick _ass_.

& & & & & & & & & & & &

**Author's Note:** Most of the writing in this new, revived version of Deconstruct is the same, original prose that I created as a 12-year-old student back in September 2002. Five years later, I am dedicating myself to only lightly brushing up the diction, syntax, and punctuation. When I abandoned the story, I had completed 29 full chapters and had planned a full 50, including an epilogue. As of today, it is my pleasure to announce that once the 29 chapters are remastered, I will pick up where I left off and finish this story once and for all. Friends new and old, thank you for your patience, your kindness, and your support. Please enjoy.


	2. Dashboard Confessionals

**Deconstruct, a Memoir**

**  
**By Solarism

_  
Chapter One – Dashboard Confessionals_

{This chapter's song is "There She Goes" by Sixpence None The Richer.}

 

 

I, of all people, certainly have a lot of things to confess.

If I ever believed in God like my sometimes Catholic mother did, He must not have liked me very much, which is probably the reason that I don’t believe anymore. Many things I may have been—unearthly magical, God damned, and positively witchy, to name several—but one thing I could never be was like her with her tiny, sainted rosary beads.She was quite a religious woman, no matter how broken or deranged she progressively became over the years of sorrow and liquor, up until her death. She would always go and confess her sins to the priest at her church on Sundays, and when she left to do that she wouldn’t come back for hours. When I was younger, I would sometimes wish that I could confess everything to a priest or someone like that, too. It would be nice, I would always think, to dump all of my problems on another person like that. However, unlike my mother, I never deemed it necessary or polite to let someone else carry the weight of my own dilemmas--not even a priest, not even Jesus Christ, and certainly not even God.

I am a witch through and through, but unless my father was a wizard (and what are the chances of that?), I am a Muggle-born. The legal driving age for Muggles is sixteen, but I owned my own automobile at age fourteen. It was a gift from an old dead neighbor who pitied me my flaming red hair and lack of a father figure. Because I was at school for nine months out of the year, I rarely got a chance to drive it, but when I did I would always start to talk to myself. I would confess all of my problems, no matter how petty, to the dashboard. I would scream and cry and curse and _laugh_ at it, and I would pound my fist on it, trying my hardest to beat the living _shit_ out of it. The good thing about that kind of catharsis was that I got to say what I wanted without the guilt of dumping it on another conscious being, but the bad part was that dashboards only bounced all of my words straight back.

Really, the only person in the car was me, so in turn I was the only one listening to myself. The words that came from my mouth echoed in my ears and drilled themselves into my brain. I could hide them that way, even if I was secretly in agony for keeping it all inside. When I was at Hogwarts, however, I couldn’t just drive off in my car when something was bothering me. There are no dashboards in the wizarding world, you see--just broom handles and a lot of black cats.

It gets lonely, you know?

During my fourth year at Hogwarts, I had a lot of confessing to do. I consciously knew that I was growing up too quickly, becoming a girl with a tongue and a mind far too sharp and wry for my own good. My chest was beginning to complement my intelligence as well, and I admittedly used that to my advantage at times with boys in older years. I was the kind of girl who appeared completely flawless to those who needed to see me as flawless, yet I was also the kind of girl who was a complete badass to those who would open their eyes wide enough to see it. Although I had exceptionally good marks in all of my classes, I also traded in a few extremely illicit undertakings, such as illegal gambling matches in the Room of Requirement every weekend. Those were the times of my life, with music so loud it seemed more prevalent than a heartbeat, liquor so plentiful that everyone in the room became a poet, and the prolific kisses of men that I should have never been with…

I had very little remorse for the things I did. That was the year that _other_ things started nagging at my heart and pecking at the back of my mind, and those things, those worries, just always seemed more important to me. I remember how I would often descend to breakfast, eyes dry and red from rubbing, because I’d spent yet another sleepless night wondering why my mother hated me so much, or why my father never tried to contact Petunia and me. (Perhaps he wasn’t aware of my existence, I often tried to rationalize, which was just as well, but he most certainly knew that he had at least one daughter out there somewhere. He was there for Petunia’s first two years of life, something I was always privately very jealous of my sister over.)

But then… There was that one sunny September day when I was sitting directly in the middle of the deserted Quidditch field, trying to do my homework and eating a chocolate cupcake straight from the kitchens. For some reason, that day, my mind just wouldn’t cooperate with my intellectual intentions. My thoughts kept straying to my problems, my guilt, and my unanswered questions. Those questions burned to be answered, and I couldn’t do anything but imagine the truth. Finally I pulled out a new piece of parchment and started writing down all of my thoughts, abandoning the Transfiguration work for later. My hand quickly began to feel cramped and overused as it was often prone to doing, even though I hadn’t written a fraction of what I’d intended, so I restlessly packed up my things and decided to lay down on the soft, green grass and just think.

I remember very specifically that the sky had big cumulonimbus clouds draped everywhere across it. It was like something out of a fairy tale. I sighed softly, shut my eyes, and shoved the last bit of cupcake into my mouth. 

I stayed like that for the longest time--silent, still, and with a mouth full of gooey chocolate. I started to lull into that kind of sleep where you aren’t really sleeping… you’re conscious of the things around you in a way, but in another way you’re dreaming and too groggy to realize your own existence. I’m not sure I can explain it. You just have to experience it. Anyway, I didn’t ‘wake up’ until my friend Arabella Figg grabbed hold of my nose and pulled on it as hard as she could. (Aria, as we sometimes called her, was like that. She had no qualms about touching you, no matter who you were. We were the kind of people who ran around giving fake little hugs to all of our friends and linking arms and all of that shit. Now I look back and realize that everything was pretty stupid, but it seemed really hip at the time.) Anyway, old Aria grabbed my nose (probably so I couldn’t breathe) and started laughing her head off about it.

My eyes snapped open and I was immediately blinded. You know how when you’ve been asleep or in the dark for a long time and then someone sticks a flashlight in your eye? That was how it was. My first thought was that someone was attacking me, so I tried my hardest to slug her, but she dodged my punch with a graceful ease no one in the world has ever since matched. I sat up, rubbed my eyes, realized who my ‘attacker’ was and waited for her to quit cackling. She finally did, after nearly turning red. (That was another thing about Arabella Figg—she was always a laugher. If anyone ever touched her side, near her belly, she would get to giggling like a hyena. The girl was fearfully ticklish—which is rather funny for about six months when you’re eleven, but after that, it just gets plain annoying.)

She stopped laughing long enough to try and gasp something out, then started laughing some more. "Lily--" she puffed, "--Lily, you’ve been sleeping out here for _hours_. I’ve been looking everywhere!" There was another spasm of laughter. (I began to thickly wonder what the hell was so funny.)

"What are you laughing about?" I snapped, grabbing some dried grass out of my long hair and tossing it down her cleavage. She clutched at her sizely chest and wheezed out a few more words that got lost in translation. "Aria!" I snapped again, "God, control yourself!" She just shook her head fiercely and kept on laughing. Finally, she seemed to get a grip.

"Lily! Lily, I want you to meet someone," she giggled, hugging herself. I smelled something on her breath and noticed her cheeks were more rosy than usual. I knew what that meant.

"Are you drunk?" I asked her, sniffing the air. Yep, she was.

"No!" she screeched. She then fell over, still hugging herself, and laughed her head off.

"Okay, Aria," I said, and shakily stood up. (When you’ve been lying down for a long time on the hard ground, your legs turn to green jello and it’s not very fun at all.) I reached down and grabbed my book bag. Arabella was almost twitching, positively delighted with herself. "Okay, Arabella,” I repeated. “Upsie-daisy girl."

She snorted loudly through her giggles, but let me help her up just the same. I wrapped her slim arm around my shoulders so she could walk steadily, but she tripped before we even got three feet. I wasn’t very steady myself from dozing for so long, but with her added weight and her drunkenness, it was no use. We both came tumbling down, cradle and all.

(That is one thing that I never did. I may gone pretty far with guys, I might’ve gambled and lied and all that, but I never drank. A lot of my friends did. Lucius Malfoy, an older boy in Slytherin and my sinister crush, was the king of alcohol at Hogwarts, for instance, and he’d been smuggling in Bacardi and gin since second year, mostly to aid my illicit gambling soirees.)

I suddenly realized, as I landed hard on my hip, that if Arabella was drunk, it meant that she’d been with Lucius. He used to have these rather exclusive little “club” meetings back then with his friends, all of whom were rich, pureblooded, and usually alcoholic. He’d sneak into deserted classrooms with his pals and drink until he was teary-eyed drunk, most days. It wasn’t until my fifth year that I ever went to one of them, so that day on the Quidditch pitch, as I blocked out the pain I felt in my hip, I realized with a fervent jolt that I was kind of jealous. Arabella had been with Lucius. Drinking. And doing God-knows-what, God-knows-where.

And there she lay, oblivious to the bruises we’d both have the next morning, giggling and thrashing beneath me. I kept trying to get up but my earrings seemed to be stuck in her hair. I couldn’t get myself untangled and it was not the most comfortable thing in the world. Arabella kept saying, "I want you to meet this guy. This guy is so nice, oh my God, you have to meet this guy, Lily, you just have to or I’ll die."

Then, all of a sudden, someone’s arms were around my waist. I tried to jerk my head to see who it was, but I let out a sharp cry of pain instead as my earrings tugged on my ear lobes. God, I got this huge blast of alcohol-breath from Arabella, too.

"Oy, stop thrashing," a boy’s voice said. "Arabella--no, come now, Arabella, stop thrashing."

"My name is Candy!" Arabella shrieked, laughing her head off.

I finally got my earring untangled from her dark black hair, and immediately the guy lifted me up into his arms. Curious to see who it was, I twisted my head around and, with a sickening crack, slammed noses with James Potter, my personal superhero of four years. 

"Whoah shit," he said.

"Oh, fucking hell!" I yelled in his ear. He cringed at the loud sound and all of a sudden I was falling again, right back onto my damn hip. I hit the ground with a loud thud and Arabella rolled over onto me, cackling and slapping my chest lightly with her hands. (Oh yeah, joke of the century.) James bedroom-hair Potter was at my side in an instant, helping me up again, and all I could think of was how mortified I was that he was here, touching me, and that I’d probably just broken his nose. I grabbed my book bag right before Arabella could roll over it, and backed off a few steps. 

I suddenly realized that James wasn’t the only boy there. I recognized Sirius Black and Remus Lupin trying to help Arabella up. Her hand flew up and knocked Remus’s glasses off, so he of course let her go and scrambled after them. Sirius dropped her, not being ready for the full force of her one hundred and twenty pounds, and her leg shot up and hit him in the crotch.

Suddenly everything was pretty funny. My nose felt numb from the first physical contact I’d ever had with James, and I was pretty sure he was bleeding. Finally Remus managed to grab Arabella amid the confusion, and a groaning Sirius got shakily to his feet. "We’ve got to get her to the Tower," James said to no one in particular, eyeing his own nose cross-eyed, and his friends immediately started walking in just that direction with Arabella draped over them. I picked up a shoe she’d kicked off, stuffed it in my bag, and started walking, in a blur, with James to the Gryffindor common room.

"Thanks," I said. "I guess she’s pretty drunk."

"Yeah, we noticed that,” he replied archly. “She was kind of bobbing and weaving and the like while she was walking near us, so we asked her if she was okay. She said she needed to lie down. I recognized her from class and everything, so Remus and Sirius and I were going to take her to the Tower. She must have seen you out here though, or _something_ , because she started running like a dog off a leash and we had to chase her nearly half a mile," he said in one big rush as he wiped the blood from his nose.

"Oh," I replied astutely.

Immediately there was the sound of good old Aria throwing up on Remus and a very loud curse word to accompany it.

"Huh," James said, shaking his head at the sight. He paused a moment, then snuck a glance at me as we passed by a few trees. "Quite a nose you’ve got on you," he said.

"I’m so sorry about that…" I was probably brushing bright red. Redheads have that unfortunate tendency, you see. "My name’s Lily. Lily Evans." I awkwardly held out a hand, since we were both walking briskly.

"I know who you are," he said, ignoring the hand, though not unkindly, "and my name’s James. Nice to hear the Bad Girl of Gryffindor finally speak. An honor, I assure you."

"The Bad Girl of Gryffindor? You flatter me, Mr. Potter," I laughed to mask my further mortification, tucking my hair behind my ears and slinging my bag over my shoulder.

"Nah, you’ve accumulated quite the reputation. Thing is, you’ve been giving the Marauders a run for our money since first year when it comes to losing points for the house,” James smiled, wiping away another dribble of blood. (Ah, the infamous Marauders. James, Sirius, Remus, and a boy named Peter Pettigrew formed the spectacular foursome. They were always pulling pranks that got them uncountable detentions, and generally bringing a lot of humor to Hogwarts. James, Sirius, and Remus were on the Gryffindor house Quidditch team, as I mentioned before, and Peter was a stand in that rarely got to play. The first three were also terribly handsome, with half of the female population at their heels. In other words, the class clown ‘popular’ kids with amazing athletic techniques. My heroes.)

"Oh, do I now? The only thing I ever lose points for is when I get caught organizing illegal activities, such as those delicious little orgies you never seem to attend,” I retorted, doing my damned best to be charming and risqué.

"Hi, I don’t think we’ve met, my name is James and I will do _anything_ if you invite me to your orgy," he grinned at me and tilted his head sideways, which only made his nose bleed more. I pulled a tissue out of my bag for him and let out a short laugh.

"We’ll see, cowboy." _That’s right, Lily, play it smooth. You’re so cool_. "When you prove you’re worthy, you might just get in."

"Arright," he laughed, just like that, not enunciating his ‘all’ at all. (I liked that about him.) We were quiet a minute while we hurried up to the door to the main building. James chivalrously held the door open for me. "You know, I’ve just thought… You’re one of those girls that hangs around with Lucius Malfoy, aren’t you?" he asked me as it swung open.

"I suppose you could say that, yes, if it’s any of your business," I smiled over my shoulder at him, stepping over the threshold.

"Hmmm," James said, sidling along behind me. "Well, Miss Lily, you might want to tell your friend here to cut down on the public drunkenness,” he said, changing the subject abruptly. “If McGonagall ever catches her like that… well, she might even get put up for expulsion, ties to the Malfoy family or not. You know McGonagall’s a bit of a snit about things like that."

"Yeah, I’ll tell her that." You could just tell by his question about Lucius he had me pegged as one of those sleazy boozehound girls. "And just so you don’t get the wrong idea now, I don’t drink like she does. I’ve never touched a drop in my life."

"Oh?" he said. "That’s funny. I thought every pretty girl in the school liked to go party with Malfoy on Saturday nights."

I smiled. He didn’t. His eyes were rather distant actually, and I wasn’t sure if he’d really meant what he’d said as a compliment. "Guess here’s one who doesn’t," I said, somewhat uneasily. We turned down a corridor. Aria was making a few cheeky comments at Sirius, who was laughing, and tripping all over Remus’s feet, who was scowling. "So…" I desperately reached for some more conversation. "Um, you play Quidditch. I’ve been watching you play since you made the team last year. You’re the best Chaser out there in my opinion."

"Thank you," James said.

There was an awkward pause and then I, idiot that I am, dove right into the most awkward topic I could think of. "Forgive me for being so abrupt here, but we’ve shared the same classes for three years prior to today, and you’ve never said a word to me, James. Do you… dislike me or something, for some reason?”

"No, of course not," he said. "I guess I just never got around to talking to you because… well. Hey, it goes both ways, you know. You never said anything to me either."

"Not true."

"Huh?"

"Once in second year I asked to borrow a quill from you."

"You actually remember something little like that?"

"Yeah…" Up the stairs, take a right, then a left…

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do you remember things like that from two years ago? Do you have some kind of super-memory or something? Why?" He laughed.

"Why not?" I smiled.

"Huh. I never looked at it like that. But no, I don’t dislike you. I just--well, Malfoy and I haven’t been the greatest friends the past four years. I don’t like his crap and he doesn’t like mine. His kind of people tend to be kind of… not my type of people. Kind of pretentious, sort of--"

"--Slutty?"

"—Er, yes, I guess so. Slutty. Sort of a lot of airheads in that bunch if you know what I mean. I like girls that I can have a decent conversation with. Girls I can take down to the Three Broomsticks and have a Butterbeer or two with. You know, friends. I’m not one of those guys that are all about the physical attraction, no matter what anyone tells you… and I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this. I just met you, right?" He flashed me a brilliant grin.

"Actually, no, we’ve known each other for four years now,” I said.

"Well yeah… but come on, we’ve never talked before."

"Well,” I said, “ _I’m_ not an airhead, anyway. I know you’re supposed to be really smart or whatever, but I get good marks, too. I want to be an Auror, in fact."

"An Auror? Wow."

"What?" Through the tapestry, two lefts, an immediate right…

"I’ve never met a girl who wanted a hands-on job like that before."

"I want to help people, that’s all. Voldemort is rising,” I shrugged. “The Ministry can control him no doubt, but I mean, who’s going to be there to defend Innocents from the next Voldemort? I want to fight the dark side. I’ve always wanted to take a stand. I’ve always wanted to be a part of something big. I could do that as an Auror."

"That’s pretty cool Lily. I--yeah, I want to be an Auror, too."

"You do?"

"Yeah. I guess so." And then he smiled. I meant to smile back, but suddenly, I found that I couldn’t. _His eyes are deep chocolate brown. They have no ending. They’re huge. You could dive in and never come up for air. Dizzy, dizzy, swirling brown, with tiny flecks of black and gold. His eyelashes are the longest I’ve ever seen on a boy, charcoal black and curled perfectly, angelically. Those eyes are controlling eyes. Laughing eyes dance beneath brows of soft ebony._

"James, what’s the password?" Remus’s aggravated voice called, awaking me from my thoughts.

"Higgledy-piggledy," James said, quirked a brow at me, and motioned his hand for me to go on ahead in front of him. I nodded, collected a slurring Arabella who was zealously waving bye-bye to Sirius from the other boys, and made my way toward the steps of the girl’s dorm.

"Thank you, all of you," I called over my shoulder. "You’ve been a big help." I helped Arabella up the first step. I heard a few chortles from Sirius, an indistinguishable grumble from Remus, who seemed to be trying to cast a spell to scour the front of his robes, and then--

"Er, Lily," James said, from behind my back. "I was wondering if you’d like to meet me later tonight for a Butterbeer. Make up for the lost years, maybe?"

"Um, this isn’t a Hogsmeade weekend," I said, blushing internally, but eyeing Arabella warily at the same time. She looked rather green, and her sporadic giggly shrieks were bound to draw a teacher of some sort sooner or later.

"I have my ways," he persisted. I tossed my long red hair over my shoulder and glanced back at him for a second. Sirius and Remus were already climbing up the steps to their common room, Remus in the process of taking off his soiled robes from where Arabella had thrown up, evidently having failed at whatever spell he’d tried. I was so tempted to take James up on his offer. He was my idol, and this was the chance of a lifetime for me, but I knew I had a date with Lucius later that evening, and there was Arabella to care for, besides...

"I’m sorry, I can’t tonight," I said, knowing that I would come to regret it later.

"Why not?" he asked. God, the boy had no shame.

"I have a date," I said, with a little grunt added at the end of it as I pushed Arabella up five more steps.

"Oh. Right, with Lucius," James said. Strangely, he sounded almost ready to laugh.

"Yes," I replied uneasily.

"Isn’t that ironic?" he suddenly murmured. "I meet a girl who seems impeccably different… but low and behold, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Malfoy one, Potter absolutely zero." Whatever that meant. "Maybe another time, then."

"Yeah, maybe." My clear voice was punctuated by a wail from Arabella.

"Have a good night, Lily."

"And you, James," I said.

And then he turned and walked up the stairs to his dorm, probably searching for Remus and Sirius. It’s not like he was serious about asking me out anyway. Or that’s what I told myself at least. He was probably just saying that to be nice. _Hell, he’s probably thanking God I didn’t say yes_ , I thought. _He probably has a thousand dates lined up for tonight anyway. No big deal._

After I put Arabella to bed (‘”I am not drunk, Lily Evans, so you let me up this instant or I’ll--whoa, you’re twins… no, no, no, wait, stop, don’t go, I’m sorry I’ll never ever ever ever ever ever get drunk again, I promise, oh Lily, come back I’m going to die!”), I had a lot of extra time on my hands before I had to get ready for my date. I decided to try to confess to the parchment again, since I didn’t have a dashboard handy. For lack of anything better to write, I wrote in my signature emerald ink:

_"James Potter has beautiful brown eyes and I have too much pain in my life and_

_nothing’s fair and why can’t I be normal because I just want_

_beautiful eyes, too."_

That seemed to sum up life pretty well for the moment, so I set down my ink well, parchment and quill.

It’s been a _long_ time.


	3. Obsessive Compulsive

** Deconstruct, a Memoir **

By Solarism

_ Chapter Two – Obsessive Compulsive ****_

 {This chapter’s song is “Life Is Beautiful” by Vega 4.}

 

 

 

Perhaps I should get back to the exciting subject of Lily. One might call me a wee bit obsessive from time to time. I mean, taken out of context I must seem so strange. Really I’m not though; strange, that is, not out of context. 

I was like this at fourteen, too. A bit odd, somewhat obsessive, quite intelligent, sort of snotty, blasting Mozart while I practiced kickboxing… I liked to watch boxing matches on wizarding television (which of course is quite different from the Muggle version) and wear baggy black pants and tight little low-cut shirts to show off my cleavage. Oh, yeah, and I was a coffee freak. Actually, I still am. Something strong and black with extra whipped cream? My idea of Heaven. Seriously, though. When I was a teenager, life revolved around me, me, me in a lot of ways, though in others it revolved around everyone else, else, else. 

Aria now, she was a dainty little thing, with soft black hair and big brown eyes. I would have given up world domination for her, she meant so much to me. The trouble with her was that she never needed any help at all. Her assignments were completed three days ahead of time, her side of the dorm room was always neatly stacked and organized, and she was hardly ever down. Arabella and I both adored being shocking. We loved to say things to get people to gasp or laugh. (Me: "There’s an error in this book I’m reading- it says ‘mystery mystery’." Her: "Someone’s getting redundant." Me: "Isn’t that the truth?" Her: "Someone’s getting redundant." Me: "Isn’t that the truth?" Her: "We’re hilarious Shirley." Me: "But of course Laverne.") Once someone came up and asked us if our conversations were scripted. We were that good.

I had other friends besides her, but they weren’t really important. No offense to them, but when it came to Aria and I, no one else could compare. She knew that just as well as I did, which is probably the reason we rarely fought. When we did, it was over her drinking or me being a cynical bitch, usually the former directly followed by the latter. Although she really only got drunk upon occasion, upon occasion was much more than I did. Usually she was a bit snobby, completely composed, elegant and strangely full of poise. I loved her. She was amazing. Gave you a real kick, you know.

Another friend of mine, perhaps my second best friend all in all if you want to get precise, was named Narcissa, and she was from Slytherin. She was the kind of person that you wanted around all the time. She was so sweet it was almost annoying. Narcissa’d give out soft little hugs and smile at you real friendly like, even if she didn’t know you very well, and she was always more than willing to lend a quill or a piece of parchment. Arabella and I babied her when she was around. We didn’t see her too much since she was in a different house, but when we did we’d always coddle her and make sure everything was going her way. Looking back, it’s really hard to imagine that sweet little angel becoming the woman she is today. It just doesn’t seem possible.

Anyway, the three of us would go to the Quidditch games together, sometimes making bets on which house would win. Arabella always picked Gryffindor out of pride, and Narcissa’d pick Slytherin for lack of any sport knowledge whatsoever, but I played it strategically. For instance, in a Ravenclaw vs. Gryffindor match, with Ravenclaw’s Seeker dead tired from studying for an exam, of course Gryffindor would win. It’s common sense. If the situation were reversed, however, I would bet on Ravenclaw, house pride aside, because it’s just tactics.

I loved Quidditch. I really did. I adored the way the balls soared through the air, the smell of fresh grass wafting high into the stands, the crack of a bludger getting knocked off by a beater. Oh, it was amazing. The boys on the team came whizzing down, playing with all their might. You could just see the sweat pouring off their well-muscled bodies, their eyebrows knit in avid concentration, and their hair standing straight up with the air pressure. If only I had had the guts to try out, I quite possibly would have been a wonderful addition to our all-testosterone-all-the-time team.

That’s another thing about me. I am what Madame Hooch once called a natural flier. I’ve been told I have a chaser’s build, since I’m too tall to be a seeker, with tiny hands, but great reflexes. I was never as graceful as Aria--her composure was all her own--but I was intuitive and I did try my best when it came to flying. I’d played Quidditch a couple of times before with the other girls in our Flying class, just to experience what it felt like, but no one else really wanted to so it never really worked out. I know that if I had been on the Gryffindor house team it would have been so much better. It would have been amazing.

But I’m getting off topic. Narcissa and Aria and I did other things together too, like studying in the library, organizing gambling nights, and just simply walking around the grounds, having a good time doing absolutely nothing of use. Gambling was also a big thing. As I mentioned before, I’d raked in a lot of money that way by my fourth year. To this day I’m shocked none of the teachers ever found out what we were up to. They almost did a couple of times, but I always somehow managed to slip out of it.

Mundungus Fletcher was one of my poker cronies. He was positively gaga over the game, and also totally terrible at it as well, luckily for my Gringotts vault. From him alone, I no doubt raked in some absurd amount like ten thousand galleons throughout our seven years together. The Fletchers are very rich people to this day, so it’s not like it was a horrible deed I did, taking his money like that. Besides, my mother never financed a thing for me, and my sister didn’t have any money of her own (although she wouldn’t have parted with it if she had), so I had to pay, or rather play, my own way through Hogwarts. It’s an expensive school, and there are no scholarships.

I, occasionally, would receive male admirers, who I would... well, tease. I’d sit in their laps with my low-cut shirts and my tight little skirts and cross my legs really regally. I’d whisper sweet nothings in their ears, convince them to come gamble with me, and wiggle around a good bit for extra measure. To tell you the truth, I’m shocked I stayed a virgin as long as I did. The boys would slip a few galleons or sickles down my shirt for ‘entertaining them’ like I did. For me it was all about the money. There was no love in my heart for those little lust-filled boys, aside from perhaps Lucius, if you could count my affection for him as ‘love’.

Arabella supported me profusely in these moneymaking schemes, and joined in with the gambling bit, too. She would have also liked to wiggle around in boys’ laps, but no one ever thought to slip her any money, so it was a rather futile endeavor. A lot of people considered my best friend to be the type of slut that James had referenced when he’d spoken of the “typical” people Lucius kept company with, regardless of what she actually did with her boyfriends. Sure, she was touchy and could be sexual when she wanted to be, but I was one of the only people that recognized her grace and brilliance, even back then. Looking back, I’m sorry I never made people see what I saw in her. Perhaps that was the one thing she could have used some help in, but I was too naïve to see it.

            Narcissa wasn’t scandalized, per se, by my love of wealth and my determination for riches, but I know she disagreed with accepting money from men in exchange for my company. She was too well-mannered to say anything about it, naturally, but I could still tell. If I did anything remotely risqué in front of her she’d shy away and make up some stupid excuse about being late for something so that she could leave. I have to give her credit, though; she did do her share of gambling. So did practically everyone in fourth year or above.

            James Potter was one who never joined the gambling-spree, at least until sixth year. He wasn’t that kind of guy. His absence was sorely missed too, because for the longest time, I’d watch the door for a sign that he was coming, all night, every night. As I said, he was my idol, and I was somewhat curious as to what he acted like when in close contact with gamblers, drinkers, and supposed whores. Not that he was a goody-goody or anything. He just seemed rather above the dirty world in which I ruled as high priestess. I suppose I truly didn’t know him very well back then.

            Sirius Black was a big favorite with all of the skimpily clad girls at Hogwarts, so, thus, he usually showed up for most gambling nights. He never actually bet, see, but he sat there and looked attractive, which won him popularity with nearly everyone in attendance. I suppose it was his way of doing something ‘cool’ since he wouldn’t be caught dead at one of Lucius’s drinking club sessions, which were the second-coolest thing to do with your free time at school. Remus Lupin, on the other hand, never showed up ever, not even when we were friends later on in our teenage years. He disapproved of the whole affair, as some of the more hoity-toity students of our prestigious school did.

Everyone knew about my gambling nights, as did everyone about Lucius’s drinking parties, but no adult was ever told. You see, it all comes down to power and hierarchy. The powerful students at Hogwarts were those who were extremely well to do in the wizarding society, with age-old families and pure blood up to their ears. Lucius was among these people, as were James and Arabella. Those three either supported me entirely or couldn’t give a damn either way, so no one could afford to rat me out. If they did, their lives would be miserable forever, and no one wants that.

Then there was the fact that I too, despite being a Muggle-born, was rather well-liked. 

Like the song says, ‘we drank wine with diamonds in the glass’. Kind of out of control, sort of dirty, and all together irresistible. Besides, I didn’t care what the side-effects were of my stunts. I just craved the money and the power, and that was that. I’ve always been a very ambitious girl.

Jesus, between the Marauders, Lucius, and I, Hogwarts was a regular hell house. James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter took care of the house rivalry stuff, along with the outright breaking of school rules. Lucius and I preferred the shadowy side of misbehaving; the wild, dangerous one. We made the Marauders look silly sometimes. They made people laugh for days, but we set people on fire.

            I truly and deeply feel sorry for the unsuspecting professors that had our year in the seventies. How they could have kept from killing themselves, I don’t know, and they didn’t even know half of what we really did.

            Anyway, perhaps I should get back to the story at hand.

            The day I first spoke to James was the day my life changed forever. I didn’t know it then, but I certainly do now. In a lot of ways life changed after that day, whether because of our meeting or not. My date with Lucius was, to say the least, amusing. He took me up to astronomy tower, sly as could be, gave me a white tiger lily (which is not only my namesake but my favorite flower as well), and proceeded to make out with me till near on eleven o’clock at night. We were giggling and laughing like mad, dancing around and hugging and having a general blast. I could tell he’d had a few shots of gin, but that was no matter. He was fabulous.

            We ended up having to sneak back to our dorms as to not get caught being out of bed after curfew. He gave me a sloppy kiss good night and then stole off into the shadows, quick as could be, and as debonair as ever. A few night owls were still in the common room when I came stumbling in, wide-eyed and messy-haired, but everyone was so used to this typical behavior from me that no one even noticed.

            Arabella was waiting eagerly up in our room, having woken up while I was gone with a splitting headache, and hungry for details of my date. When I walked into our dorm, she was sitting up on her bed, painting her toe nails bright red with a devilish grin on her pretty face.

            "So," she said, "old Luce got to first base I see."

            "Second, actually." I slung my little body down onto my bed, smiling happily up at the ceiling. Life is bliss. "He was quite persistent tonight."

            "Naturally. One of these days you’re so going to fuck him," she said.

            "Yeah, you’re probably right. I don’t know though. He’s a sleaze. Doesn’t commit. Besides, I gamble with the guy, and I don’t like mixing business with pleasure."

            "Oh please, Lily, you’re head over heels!"

            I laughed. "You don’t miss a trick, Aria, you really don’t."

            "No, I don’t," she said. "It’s because I’m perfect. What do you think of this nail polish color?"

            "It’s okay. I like the color, but you forgot your baby toe on the left foot."

            "Thanks."

            "No problem. What are friends for?"

            "Lesbian action."

            "Quite right. And for juicy details on boys."

            "Indeed."

            We were quiet for a while as she painted her toes and I closed my eyes, remembering the exciting events earlier in the day. I recalled Arabella and her drunkenness and James and his oddness and Lucius and his irresistible charm. A day in the life of fourteen-year-old Lily Evans was never boring, children.

            "Oh, Aria…" I turned my head toward my best friend.

            "Hmmm?"

            "You’re a _horrid_ drunk."

& & & & & & & & & & & &

** Author’s Note: ** Man, this chapter is a pointless piece of shit. It took me awhile to post it because I kept debating furiously with myself whether or not it would be better to just exclude it entirely from this reposted version. In the end, I edited it _very_ minimally, mostly because I didn’t even know where to begin picking apart the utter crap that I wrote as a 12-year-old, and posted it anyway. Instead, I focused my time on editing (thankfully much better written) future chapters, which I’ll post here soon. Forgive my decision to post this if it turns out to be a poor one in the long run of this work—I just figured, in the end, it would be pointless to hide it, bad as it certainly is.  :)  Better update soon.

 


	4. Sex Appeal

** Deconstruct, a Memoir **

By Solarism

_ Chapter Three – Sex Appeal _

{This chapter’s song is “Four Leaf Clover” by Badly Drawn Boy.}

 

 

" _Lily_ ," Lucius languidly drawled my name, "I wish you wouldn’t shy away from me like you do."

"I’m sorry," I apologized quickly with a wry smile. "I’m not trying to shy away. I’ve just got things on my mind right now. That’s all." He wrapped his hand over my delicate one, encasing my icy flesh with his warm fingers.

            "What things?" he asked, drawing me closer to his well-toned form. Lucius was a tall boy, at least six foot at fourteen, and he, like Arabella, was as graceful as a swan. He reminded me of a machine sometimes; every action and every word he uttered was planned out beforehand, carefully constructed with frozen loveliness. His skin was polished and pale with shaggy platinum hair and sharp gray eyes adorning his angelic face. I think Malfoys always have been and always will be like Snow Kings dipped in frost.

            "Oh, things." I didn’t feel like telling him about speaking to James (for that was what I was thinking about). They hated each other passionately, after all, and Lucius was not an understanding person even then. "Nothing you should be worrying about, darling."

            "No." His grip tightened noticeably on my hand, and although his face remained a piece of sculpted porcelain, his tone was commanding. I widened my eyes slightly and dug my nails into his hand, warning him against trying anything funny. His grasp softened to a loose clutch, and his metallic eyes blinked. "I want to know," he said softly. "I want to know everything about you."

            "I guess I am withdrawn," I said, tracing a soft finger down his manly chest to calm him, "but I don’t mean to be. I’m just thinking up new ways to promote my gambling nights. Honestly." I smiled a doll’s smile at him. Lucius put me into Slytherin mood; cautious and perfect and untouchable.

            He threw his head back and gave a perfect laugh with a perfect little squeeze of my hand. "You rake in too much money already. You’re the only girl I know who can beat me at cards, and that’s saying something. A Malfoy does not lose."

            "Oh, yes, you and your stupid pride," I smiled and teasingly licked his bottom lip. I felt him give a short, involuntary tremor somewhere deep inside as he hungrily tried to take a kiss.

            I pulled back and he gave a short and nearly silent sigh. "Why do you do that to me?"

            "Because I can, my dear," I murmured as I let my hands delicately roam his angel-soft hair. Lucius was as delicious as chocolate. He really was.

            He forcefully pressed his lips against mine, letting his tongue invade my mouth, as if he were trying to suck all of the sex appeal straight out of me. He was like that. Everything was demanding with him; every word an order, every movement a warning, every glance a command. I hissed his name, " _Lucius_ …" into his mouth, and he swept me up into his arms, kissing down my neck, my forehead, my lips…

            He was extraordinary. He kissed my eyelids and then forcibly took my mouth over once again with an unmistakable lust. Lucius pressed himself up against my fragile body, trying to mold me into him, trying to envelop me. His passion was magnificent. He moved to my collarbone, lusciously savoring my ivory skin.

            "Mmmmm," I murmured, letting my eyes practically roll back into my head.  I saw the soft green canopy of the tree we were under, the surreal blue of the sky--and realized, jarringly, that we were outside.

            I abruptly pulled back from Lucius, and I could see the disappointment blossom in his eyes. He looked over my shoulder, glared at some giggling first years that had been watching us from the start, and gave me a tart kiss on the cheek, reprimanded. "I’ll catch you later," he said through his teeth with a simplistic smile, "my Lily flower."

            He turned on his heel, quite literally, and sauntered off to the Quidditch field--no doubt to blow off his frustration riding around on his top of the line broomstick. The first years watched him walk away from me, giggling their heads off. I turned around and scowled at them.

            "Hey," I called, "don’t you kids have anything better to do than oggle? Like avoid getting turned into rats by angry fourth year girls?" They took sharp little intakes of breaths and ran in the opposite direction. (I love it when kids do that.) I sighed softly, licked my lips, savoring the taste of Lucius, and strolled back into the castle. Perhaps another time…

            A few minutes later I was in front of the Fat Lady, a portrait that was the secret entrance to our Gryffindor common room. "Blue suede shoes," I said, and the lady obligingly swung open. I hoisted myself into the opening and scrambled in just as the picture swung shut behind me. (Damn things don’t give you enough time to get through before closing again.)

            James Potter was sitting on, or was rather sprawled out over, an over-stuffed maroon armchair. A couple of second years were playing a game of wizarding chess in the corner, but besides them, we were alone. He looked up, probably a bit startled to see me indoors on such an unusually beautiful day for early October. It had been about a week since our first official meeting, and we hadn’t spoken a word since.

            "Hi," he said.

            "What’re you doing here?" I asked with a slight smile, perhaps a bit rudely.

            "Being," James said. "And what are you doing here, my slippery friend?" _He said ‘friend’. James Potter has dizzy eyes. Gold, brown, green, violet, black, blue… swirling dizzy, dizzy, dizzy, let me fall all over you, silly sweetness, lose yourself…_

__ "Huh?" I said, ever so intelligently.

            "Nevermind," he grinned, and patted the chair beside him. "If you plan on staying, I’ll keep you company."

            "Oh. Yeah, sure." I walked slowly across the room and slid into the cool leather. It felt soothing on my passion-mad skin. James rubbed his eyes and stared absently out the window. I let my gaze follow his and was startled to see that the window had a crystal clear view of the tree Lucius and I had occupied only moments before. I wondered if he’d seen.

            If he had, he sure wasn’t letting on. "God, it’s nice out for October,” he said, staring airily out the window.

            "Yeah--real nice. Is it hot in here, or is it just me?" I fanned myself with my hand, the hand Lucius had held. It was almost agitating. James was equally as handsome as Lucius, and somehow, impulsively, I felt the intense urge to kiss him, too. He wasn’t the kind of boy you could just up and seduce though. He was tricky, and someone I respected a great deal for his infamous pranks and legendary Quidditch skills. He was, to put it bluntly, out of my league.

            James chuckled. "It’s all you," he replied with a sly grin and turned away from the window. I must have blushed bright red because he shook his head and watched me intently. "A real blushing beauty you are, Miss Evans."

            "Are we really speaking in surnames now? Are you always that much of a gentleman, Mr. Potter?" I asked, tucking my hair behind my ears. I looked away from him, reminding myself that I barely knew this boy—that he was better than me, in every respect.

            "Yeah," he said. "So… are you coming to the next Quidditch match?"

            "Of course. I love it." Thank you, G _od_ , a change of subject.

            "Maybe I’ll see you there, then?"

            "That’d be good," I smiled at the wall.

            "Yeah, it would be, wouldn’t it?" His eyes fogged over for a minute, as if his thoughts were far away from the game of Quidditch. What an odd boy that James Potter was, and what an overbearing girl I must have been. "Hey, I’ve got to get something to eat. I’m starving."

            "Oh? Okay," I said, a bit disappointed he’d be leaving so soon.

            He got up and was almost to the portrait of the Fat Lady when he turned around. "Say, Lily…"

            "Yes?"

            "Come with me."

            "Come with you where?"

            "To get something to eat."

            "I don’t know…" I glanced out the window again, still wondering if James had seen Lucius and me. I hadn’t realized how out in the open we’d been. If he had seen, well… I would have been very embarrassed. That’s a funny thing about James--he made me give a shit about things.

            "Come on," he half-smiled, "I’m not terrible. I may not be any Lucius Malfoy, but a lot of girls think I’m pretty cute, too."

            I smiled, this time to the ceiling, and stood up. "Well, okay. Just to get something to eat, though." Why was I playing at hesitancy?

            "Great," said James, "just give me a minute." I nodded, and he ran up the boys’ stairs to his presumably his dorm room, emerging two minutes later with something wadded in his pocket and his wand. I didn’t ask. "Let’s go," he smiled.

            I followed him out of the common room in silence. To head toward the kitchens, you have to turn left after leaving Gryffindor tower. Immediately, James turned right.

            "Um, are you sure we’re going the right way? The kitchens are that way." I pointed over my shoulder, but he just laughed and grabbed my hand.

            _He’s touching me. Dizzy, dizzy, dizzy--his hands are smooth and soft like mine… delicate, delicate, up, up, up, bones are light and fluttery and petite, fragile little hands, dizzy, dizzy eyes and fragile hands and a springy step, up, up, up, lose yourself, magic, dizzy, dizzy, careful grip and deliberate grasp, dizzy eyes… James Potter has dizzy eyes…_

__ After I started to move with him at an unnecessarily fast pace, he let go of my hand and I felt like he’d slugged me or something. I bit the insides of my cheeks and kept shooting curious looks at him.

            He led me to a statue of a big fat witch with her rump high in the air. He stopped and looked at me expectantly, like I was supposed to know exactly what was going on.

            "What?"

            "Lily Evans, you’re being kidnapped." James took something long and silvery out of pocket, and it looked like metallic liquid. I got a flash of Lucius’s eyes and hesitated.

            He didn’t give me a chance to back out, however, for he grabbed me and held me close against his chest, flinging the cloak--for that was what it was--over us. My natural reflexes took over, and idol or not, I tried to slug him. His Chaser’s hands, however delicate as they seemed, caught my fist and held me still. "Shhh," he whispered to me and walked us over to a mirror on the wall. "Do you believe in magic?" he asked me, his voice low and reverberating.

            "Of course, you prat!" I was trying to glare at him, but I couldn’t.

            "Look," he said, and motioned towards the mirror.

            I looked.

                Nothing.

He laughed in my ear and I felt his warm breath play gently across my cheek. We were so close that there was no sense of personal space. Perhaps he was like Arabella in that way; no problem with touching you. I breathed in deeply as I saw nothing in the mirror at all. There was no reflection, no nothing. James stuck his hand out of the cloak and suddenly a hand appeared in the mirror, dancing around. I let out my big breath as he tucked his hand safely back inside.

                "This is an invisibility cloak," I said, stating the obvious. "No one has these things. No one."

                "I do," James said, finding my horror and awe extremely comical.

            "How…?"

            "Family heirloom. Shhh, you can’t tell anyone…"

            I stuck my hand out of the cloak and made it dance around in front of the mirror. It was amazing. It’s like having someone tell you that you have three eyes or something, and then finally noticing it for the first time yourself. I felt like I’d just learned one of the universe’s many secrets. (Maybe I had.)

            "Lily," James said, his voice still soft, "promise?"

            "Mm?"

            "Promise not to tell anyone?"

            "Yes…" I said, snatching my hand back inside the cloak, "I promise."

            "Good," said James, and he steered me back over to the odd witch figure. "Now, you can’t tell anyone about this, either." He took from his other pocket a piece of blank parchment, and got out his wand as well. "I solemnly swear I am up to no good," he murmured.

            At first I thought he was talking to me or something, but he tapped the parchment with his wand and all of a sudden, sure as you know it, little lines of black ink began to spread out over the page. Words were forming in spidery handwriting:

_ Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs _

_ Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers _

_ are proud to present _

_ The Marauder’s Map _

__

            I gave a little gasp. "James--" I started, but was soon silenced by the picture on the parchment. It was a thorough map of Hogwarts, only with rooms and corridors and secret passageways I had never seen before. There were the grounds--the Quidditch pitch, the Whomping Willow that had been planted our first year, the tree Lucius and I had been under… And shockingly, passageways that seemed to lead off of the grounds.

            In addition to all of that, little tiny colored dots were roaming around the map, each one labeled as a teacher or caretaker or something of the sort to watch out for. Headmaster Dumbledore was in the Great Hall speaking with McGonagall and Flitwick about something. Filch, the new caretaker, was shining up trophies in the trophy room with his devilish cat, Mrs. Norris, by his side.

            There were other dots, too. The Head Boy and Head Girl were on the Quidditch field, all of the Prefects were in the library--probably at a boring meeting of some sort--and then five dots were left.

            In electric blue ink was ‘Moony’, who appeared to be sneaking food from the kitchens with ‘Wormtail’, who was in scarlet ink. ‘Padfoot’ was in terrifically bright orange, and he was roaming around outside somewhere, conspicuously surrounded by about ten other little black dots, presumably a crowd of second year girls. ‘Prongs’ was in rugged brown ink--and most shocking of all was a little emerald dot labeled ‘Lily’, practically on top of Prongs, in a corridor near a statue with a secret passage that looked as though it led to somewhere far, far away.

            "James!" I hissed.

            "Shhhh!" he warned. "We may be invisible, but people can still hear you!"

            "I demand to know what this thing is right now. Right now!"

            He laughed. "That’s the Marauder’s Map. As you know, we are the Marauders. We have nicknames for each other, concerning something you aren’t to know about, and these are it."

            "Are you telling me that you and Sirius and Remus and Peter made this--this--this _map_? By yourselves?"

            "Yes," said James proudly, "we did. We started making it last year and finished it up a few months ago. Isn’t it amazing?"

            "Boys and their toys…" I murmured, astounded. "How did you do it…?"

            "Oh, lots of sleepless nights roaming around the castle, using charms and curses and such to see things no one else can. It’s been hard work, I’ll tell you that." A soft waft of warm breath splashed across my cheek again.

            "What are these?" I was still staring in awe at the map, pointing to the seven passages that appeared to lead off the grounds.

            "Ah," said James, "and now the fun begins." He put his hand over mine, and directed my fingers to the first one. "This," he said, "leads to Dervish and Banges in Hogsmeade." He moved my finger to the second one. "This leads to somewhere you don’t want to know about…" I recognized the Whomping Willow directly over the passageway and shuddered.

            He moved my hand to the next one. "We think Filch may be on to this one, so we don’t use it unless we absolutely have to. It leads to The Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade," James lightly moved my hand over to the fourth secret passageway. His breath blew across my cheek again. "This is where we are. It leads to a surprise." He tapped the map-witch with his thumb. It had a little word written on it--‘Dissendium’. The fifth secret passageway, James told me, led to the post office. I noted a mirror was the entrance on the fourth floor. The sixth and seventh merely led to other shops in Hogsmeade. "What do you think?" he asked.

            "It’s amazing…" He took his hand off of mine and let me hold the map by myself. It was light, just like your average piece of parchment, but it was just so much more. In my book, it was one of the Seven Wonders of the World. And my idol had created it…?

            James laughed. "Yeah, I guess it is. But come on, we’re wasting valuable time."

            "Wait," I said, "why am I on the map--in color?"

            "Oh, everyone who knows about the map and has seen what it can do is in color. Everyone else is just in black. Funny the map put you in emerald though. The color suits you."

            I swallowed hard and knew I was blushing.

            "Come on," he said again, "let’s go."

            "Where are we going?"

            "You’ll see," was all he would reply as he tapped the witch, said ‘Dissendium’, and thrust me out of the cloak--straight down an empty shoot. I slid down a stone-like slide a considerable distance, livid, shocked, and trying to keep from screaming. I hit damp, earthen floor, and seconds later, James fell on top of me.

            "Oof!" I exclaimed with an elegance that Arabella would have been proud of, I’m sure.

            "Bollocks, Lily, you’re supposed to get up!" he said. I glared at him, but much of the effect was lost, seeing as it was pitch black.

            "Lumos," James said, and got off of me, invisibility cloak in hand. He extended a slender hand to me, and I somewhat grudgingly took it. He pulled me up with amazing ease. "Mischief managed," he told the map, and I saw it return to its normal blankness.

            "Some surprise," I grumbled. "You toss me down some shoot into complete darkness and then fall on me."

            "That isn’t the surprise," James laughed. "This is a tunnel. It’s going to lead us somewhere."

            "Okay then, that answers _all_ of my questions," I said sardonically. We walked in silence for nearly half an hour, up hill, and at a pretty steady pace. Both of us were in good shape, however, so we barely broke a sweat. The only light throughout the whole tunnel was coming from James’s wand, so we had to remain pretty close together still to see.

            It seemed funny. For the previous three years, I had wished James would say hello to me--and now, here we were, as close together as if we were lovers, all alone in a dank tunnel. He was leading me somewhere--me, Lily Evans--to a surprise. It was more than exciting, really; it was positively thrilling.

            "Okay," he said, slightly out of breath. "We’re here."

            "Huh?" I asked.

            He raised his wand, revealing hundreds of stairs. I groaned.

            "What are you trying to do?  Kill me?"

            "Ha!"  James said, and so we started climbing. I lost count of how many stairs there were after two hundred and fifty, but finally James grabbed my arm to keep me from going any higher. "Okay, now we’re really here." He tapped his wand on the ceiling above us, and all of a sudden a trap door swung open. He pulled me into the invisibility cloak with him, and I felt my head press up against his shoulder. He, like Lucius, was tall.

            We climbed up into a storage area of some sort, full of boxes labeled various candy company names. "Where are we?"

            "The cellar of Honeydukes," James smiled. "Be quiet, though; the owner doesn’t know about this trap door."

            I nodded to let him know I understood, so he carefully led me into the main floor of the shop. I saw the owner stacking packages of Chocolate Frogs on one side of the wall; he didn’t even notice the two invisible fourteen-year-olds wander into his store. I almost started to giggle, so James cupped a hand around my lips. I closed my eyes in pure ecstasy. _Like little kids in a candy store…_

            He directed me out into the main street of Hogsmeade and threw off our cloak. I gave him a suspicious look--wouldn’t someone tell Dumbledore they’d seen us? "It’s okay," James reassured me. "We’re going to The Three Broomsticks for lunch--my treat. Madame Rosmerta knows Sirius and Remus and Peter and I sneak up here. She won’t tell."

            "Oh, James," I said, "This is fabulous."

            "Rather," he grinned, and grabbed my hand. I liked the feel of his skin against mine. He pulled me into the tavern we both knew so well, me laughing like a schoolgirl and him grinning his head off. We must have looked quite silly to anyone who had seen us—like two teenagers on a romantic rendezvous, perhaps.

            A tall, voluptuous young woman whom we knew as Rosmerta appeared immediately before us. She was in her late twenties, conceivably, during our school years. Her father had owned the tavern before her, but he had died an early death and it had been bequeathed to her not long before we began school. "James Potter!" she exclaimed with exuberance.

            "Ah, my lovely Rosmerta," said James in reply, with a sly wink.

            Rosmerta giggled. "Always the charmer, James! And where is young Mr. Black on this fine day? It’s a rare event indeed you two aren’t attached at the hip."

            "Oh, Sirius is still at school. I’m here on pleasure today, not business. You know Lily Evans, I’m sure," he said, nodding at me.

            "Ooh my goodness, yes," Rosmerta said. "The cute little carrot top with a penchant for gambling?"

            "Er, yes, that would be me," I nodded. "I’ve won many a card came in here on, er, regular visiting weekends."

            "Splendid," she clapped her hands. "What’ll it be, kids? Your usual table, James?"

            "Sure," he said. "Two Butterbeers to start with, I think." He shot a glance at me to make sure that was acceptable before letting the Madame bustle off, eager to fulfill what was obviously her favorite customer’s order.

            James led me to a cozy table in the corner of the pub, pulled the wooden chair out for me with chivalry, and seated himself across from me. "Fun?" he asked, his eyes alight with some inner laughter.

            "Fun," I agreed, unable to contain a broad, telling grin.

            "So," he said.

            "So… any particular reason you decided to drag me out here?"

            "Like I told you before, making up for lost years."

            "Yeah, but I don’t see you kidnapping every girl you meet."

            "To tell you the truth, I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a long time now, Lily." Brown met emerald as he looked me directly in the eye. My heart leapt straight into my throat.

            "Oh?"

            "Yes… you’re mentioned in practically every conversation I’m in. ‘Did you go to Lily’s gambling night?’, ‘Did you see what Lily did today?’, ‘I hear Lily’s going to go out with Lucius’."

            "Ha."

            "But I’d never spoken to you before. I guess I wanted to see what the big deal was. Then when I finally struck up a conversation with you since Arabella happened to be drunk, I kind of saw what people meant."

            "Oh?”

            "You’re… actually quite interesting. It’s relieving to realize you’re not just some drunken toy of Malfoy’s."

            "Lucius isn’t my boyfriend, you know,” I told him with a frown. “He’s just someone who I share a strange bond with. Someone I gamble with. You know."

            "You were doing more than gambling under that tree today," said James, a tiny smirk playing over his lips. So he _had_ seen. Great.

            "Were you spying on me?"

            "No."

            "Liar."

            "Are you always that loud when you make out, or was today an exception?" he grinned.

            "I’m going to leave in about two seconds,” I replied, my eyes wide with mortification.

            "How do you plan on getting back without the cloak?"

            "Damn you."

            He broke into a broad smile. "That’s what I thought. Seriously, though, I’d like to get to know you, Lily. It’d be nice to tell people I actually know the Bad Girl of Gryffindor. Like touching royalty, you know?"

            He had had me at “hello,” but now I was both flattered and piqued. "What do you want to know?" I asked with a shrug and another ceiling grin.

            "Everything,” he said.

            "Okay,” I thought for a moment. “My name is Lily Evans. I was a mistake from birth. My dad is supposedly an American, my sister is _atrocious_ , I enjoy money and power, it’s odd I wasn’t placed in Slytherin considering how ambitious I am, I am not Lucius Malfoy’s property, hi, you have dizzy eyes, and yes I know, it _is_ amazing I can talk this fast."

            "Why are you named Lily?" asked James without missing a beat.

            "My mother liked flowers. She named my sister Petunia, and she named me the death flower."

            "How were you a mistake from birth?"

            "My mother was a Catholic. She never married my father, yet had sex with him, had my sister, did it again, realized she was a horrible person, and flew home to merry old England, not knowing she was pregnant with me."

            "Ah. I see. Your dad was an American?"

            "Yes. He was from Georgia."

            "Americans have the most delightful accents, I find. How is your sister atrocious?"

            "She’s envious that I’m a witch. She treats me like shit because of it."

            "And what do you plan to do with all that money you get from your gambling nights?"

            "As I told you, I’m going to be an Auror. Arabella and I are going to get an apartment together after we graduate. She wants to work at the Ministry too, probably more of a desk job for her, though—she’s delicate. I’ll put the money I get from that, combined with the money I get from my Hogwarts days, into a bank account so I can be well off in my adult life. Then my children will get my money when I die."

            "Very interesting. Are you that ambitious that you would kill for power?"

            "Of course not. I would only kill in self defense- fighting against the dark side."

            "Then that’s why you aren’t in Slytherin. Malfoy, if anything, is your property. Do you think he treats you like a possession or something?"

            "Yes, sometimes. He’s a very demanding person. Very strong."

            "Hi. What was that about my eyes?"

            "They’re dizzy."

            "Come again?"

            "Brown, gold, blue, black, green, violet, gray. They’re gorgeous."

            "Er, thanks. And finally, yes, it _is_ amazing you can talk that fast, but I bet I probably know someone who could talk faster. His name begins with a Sirius and ends in a Black."

            "How come you never come to my gambling nights, James?" I asked suddenly.

            "I hate gambling because I’m atrocious at it. I like to save my money like you do, so why should I lose it on stupid card games?" he said with a shrug of his shoulders/

            "I bet you twenty galleons I could get you gambling by the end of the day."

            "Alright, you’re on,” he said.

            "Ha! You _are_ terrible. Pay up."

            "Bollocks,” he smiled. “Settle for lunch instead?"

            "I think I could deal with that,” I smiled back.

            Madame Rosmerta suddenly appeared aside our table with two mugs nearly overflowing with Butterbeer. "Ready to order, James, darling?" she asked.

            "I’ll have the largest order of fish and chips you’ve got with a salad," said James, and then he smiled at me. "Pick anything you want."

            "I’ll have the same," I told the madame.

            "Wow, big eater?" he arched an eyebrow.

            "Terribly."

            "How do you stay so thin?" he chuckled.

            "Fast metabolism," I shrugged. "Aren’t you afraid I’ll tell someone about that map of yours? Or worse, the cloak?"

            "No," James ran a hand through his wild black hair.

            "Why not?"

            "Because I’d tell about your gambling nights."

            "You wouldn’t dare."

            "I wouldn’t, would I? I’m not afraid of being unpopular, you forget, and I doubt anybody would hate me that much anyway. I’m ‘irresistible’." He rolled his eyes good-naturedly.

            "Fair enough."

            "Why do you always hide your arms?"

            "What?"

            "I’ve never seen your arms."

            "You just met me a week ago."

            "I’ve seen you around for four _years_."

            "I don’t like people seeing my arms, I guess."

            "Why not?"

            "I just don’t."

            "Even when you dress like a whore--"

            "Excuse me?"

            "--You wear long sleeves."

            "I do _not_ dress like a whore, James--"

            "What are you hiding?"

            "Warts."

            "Really, what’s the big secret?"

            "Nothing."

            He reached over across the table, grabbed my arm and wrenched up the sleeve. Teeny pink scars and big black and blue bruises decorated my pale skin as far as the eye could see. I sighed audibly and looked at the rafters far above us.

            There was a pause, and then, "Who did that to you?"

            "I bruise easily. You touch me, I bruise."

            "Someone’s been grabbing you too much. So the stories are true."

            "Not hard."

            "Bollocks, not hard. Slytherins are rough. Don’t deny it. Malfoy did this, didn’t he?"

            "No."

            "Don’t lie. That’s a poor mark for a first date,” he said. My eyes caught his with a jolt. He’d said the word date, even if it was in dark jest.

            "I’m not,” I murmured.

            "What about the scars? Where did they come from, then?"

            I yanked down my sleeve. "Nowhere."

            "They came from somewhere, Lily," he said, eyebrows raised.

            "No, they really didn’t."

            "Do you cut yourself?"

            "No."

            "Yes, you do. Bollocks."

"No, James, I don’t."

"Where did they come from then?"

            "I fell in a rose bush."

            "Liar, liar. Why do you do it?"

            "I haven’t done it since the summer before last. I used do it over the summers… over the breaks. My mother. My sister. Life," I looked again to the rafters. They were oddly clean, as though Rosmerta specially scoured them over the area James’ usual table was in… No dust to fall upon his princely shoulders…

            "I thought you’d be stronger than that,” he said.

            "A lot of people do it."

            "I don’t."

            "Arabella used to do it. It’s fun when you’re bored or when you’re upset."

            "You’re _psychotic_. The both of you."

            "You say it like it’s a bad thing.” I suddenly felt as though I wanted to cry.

            "I knew there was something up with you,” he said, his voice low and slightly accusatory. How much more humiliated did he have to make me?

            "Please. I don’t do it anymore,” I whispered.

            "Oh, really."

            "Yes, really. I don’t have any need to anymore."

            "Uh huh."

            "Right. I don’t. So drop it."

            "Where else do you do it?"

            "Nowhere."

            "On your stomach I bet."

            I lifted up my shirt slightly. Nothing. "Pay up."

            "I didn’t bet anything."

            "Fuck you."

            "Okay, let’s go. I can see this was really stupid of me,” he said.

            "Where’s our food?"

            "Relax, we just ordered a minute ago. Do I make you nervous?"

            "Yes."

            "Why?"

            "Because you’re guessing my secrets away. I used to do it because I felt the need to confess. I don’t believe in ‘God’, I don’t have any friends at home, and sometimes confessing to myself in my car isn’t good enough. But I don’t do it anymore. Cut, that is."

            "You are one screwed up girl, Lily. You’re only fourteen."

            "I gave my first lap dance at eleven."

            "Not funny."

            "I thought it was."

            "What an ironic conversation."

            "Like Arabella and I. Once someone came up and asked us if our conversations were scripted."

            "Are they?"

            "No."

            "Why not?"

            "Why should they be?"

            "For fun."

            "When everything’s planned, how can you live life?"

            "Tell that to your boyfriend,” he smiled, evidently trying to amend his probing.

            "Lucius is not my boyfriend and he is not planned out. Okay, well, maybe he is planned out but he is _not_ my boyfriend. If he was my boyfriend I wouldn’t be here with you right now, would I?"

            "Yes, I think you would,” James laughed.

            "How so?"

            "I kidnapped you, remember?"

            "Oh, good God!"

            "You know you love it," he smiled.

            "Actually, I want to rip your head off right now."

            "I don’t have a problem with the head above the belt as I rarely used it anyway, but the other is off-limits till the wedding night, sorry."

            "Like I’d marry you."

            "You might."

            "Why?"

            "Severe head trauma, maybe,” he laughed again.

            "I like the way you think, James."

            "So do I."

            "You’re such a loser," I laughed back, finally, my left hand rubbing my right forearm under the table.

            "You know it, dearest."

            "Don’t call me dearest. It isn’t sincere."

            "As you wish, madam."

            "Don’t call me that either!" I grinned.

            "What can I call you then?"

            "Princess of the World."

            "Like hell,” he replied.

            "Suit yourself."

            Rosmerta appeared again, carrying two steaming hot trays of food. I took a long draught of my Butterbeer and closed my eyes. A minute later:

            "Why do you close your eyes so much?"

            "Do you have to know everything?"

            "Yes."

            "What’ll happen if you don’t?"

            "My head’ll explode."

            "I close my eyes because I can."

            "Noble."

            "Do you like coffee?"

            "What?"

            "Caffeinated. Black. Coffee."

            "Can’t say I’ve ever had it, strangely.”

            "You haven’t experienced heaven then yet."

            "What do you think happens after death?"

            "Nothing."

            "Nothing?"

            "Yes, nothing. I’m not religious."

            "Neither am I."

            "Really?"

            "Really."

            "Pass the ketchup, please."

            He handed the tall red bottle to me, and our fingertips touched. A chill ran through my entire body as our eyes connected. _James Potter has dizzy eyes._ He leaned in, and I shut my eyes, knowing that he would kiss me… Only, after an awkward moment, I realized that he hadn’t. He stole a chip, leaned back in his chair, and ate instead. I bit my tongue, took a long sip of Butterbeer, and prepared myself for the rest of my life.

                & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

** Author’s Note: ** Thank God, the writing begins to gently improve starting in the next chapter. One good thing about this rewrite? I get to insert more good music in the chapter soundtracks. It helps to download them and listen to them as you read, or at least immediately following it. Trust me.


	5. Painted Angel Pains

** Deconstruct, a Memoir **

By Solarism

_ Chapter Four – Painted Angels _

{This chapter’s song is “I’m Like a Lawyer The Way I’m Always Trying to Get You Off” by Fall Out Boy.}

__

 

 

You know, it’s odd. I’ve been writing down my life in this book for a while now, yet I’ve managed to completely skip over some of the people that have affected me the most. I don’t mean to leave them out of my story--quite the contrary, actually, seeing as they all play huge parts at one point or another. I’d like to verify right here and now, for the record, that Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were _amazing_. But Moony and Padfoot are not the only people I am forgetting…

            Severus Snape has not been mentioned yet, and he’ll probably be extremely offended about it when this is finally published. He was Lucius’s best friend, and therefore a friend of mine as well, if only by mutual acquaintance. If I was the female pimp of Gryffindor, Snape was my head whore. He bullied people into attending, prodded people into betting just one more time--called in favors, just for little old me. Of course it didn’t help matters he had the hugest crush on me--just fell all over himself to please ‘Lillian’, as he called me, although it wasn’t my proper name. Severus was a conniving boy, a real Slytherin, but greasily sweet as well. Naturally, the Marauders despised him.

            The thing about these three people was that they clashed horribly. Remus, the studious bookworm--nice as apple pie and ice cream; Sirius, the wild flirt with entirely too many pick up lines patented to his name; and Severus--the sneaky Slytherin, always sucking up to someone, be it teacher or student. Three lovely boys on the edge of manhood, all hopelessly special, and all amazingly complicated.

            On a typical Saturday night, each were doing completely opposite things. Remus was generally holed up in the library, studying his little heart out, begging the librarian for just a little more time pretty please just for him. Sirius and Severus were at my gambling parties, usually held in a large, deserted classroom called the Room of Requirement specially charmed so no adult could see or hear what went on inside. What baffles me the most is to why the professors, as safe as they claimed Hogwarts to be, could not for the life of them figure out what a tricky little fourteen year old was running right under their noses.

            Severus, when attending these weekly affairs, skulked around with the rest of the Slytherins (they tend to move in groups), placing high-staked bets on whatever his heart was content with. He was an okay gambler; nothing special, but definitely not horrible like Mundungus. Partial to craps, if I remember correctly, and dealt a mean game of spades. You had to watch that one though, prone to cheating like nothing else--stirred up quite a bit of ruckus back then… Used to threaten people with mean curses if they didn’t just hand over their money, that’s right, just like that, thank you _very_ much.

            Sirius had this one particular armchair he always lounged in, sipping Butterbeers (no doubt stolen from the kitchens or from Hogsmeade) and flirting with the girls. Occasionally I would sit on his lap and make sure everything was going okay for my favorite boy; would he like something else to drink?--a beer perhaps?--no?--well, there was also a fine match of wizarding chess going on over there, bets still being taken and all. He’d nod real polite to me, give me a quick kiss on the cheek before Lucius turned around, and tell me I’d been a lovely hostess as ever.

            Little Pete Pettigrew would generally be beside Sirius, but I never bothered with that kid. He was short and squat and entirely too quiet for me. He did this stuttering thing… could he puh-puh-puh-please have a glass of water, no, not gin, just wuh-wuh-wuh-water, thanks. I was always civil to him, for he was James’s friend, and so in my book he had to be okay. All the same, maybe not in fourth year, but later on, my relationship with Pete grew strange. It’s probably best described like an apple that’s been sitting in the sun two days too many… Polished and shiny on the outside, real sweet and inviting looking; mealy and a bit sickening on the inside; and a big pile of shit just _wait_ ing to hit the fan at the core. You just never knew about guys like Pettigrew.

            Mundungus Fletcher and Sally McIntyre walked around losing all their money, drinking pumpkin juice sometimes spiked with the finest white wine ol’ Fletch could steal from the house elves. Narcissa was content to walk around serving drinks, making eyes at all the sexy Ravenclaw boys, batting her eyelashes--‘ooh, hi there, would you like a glass of wine, sweetheart?’. She was just so damn sweet no one could refuse her. Arabella monitored the games and bets like a hawk. She could give a real mean glare, that girl, with her lips pursed and her eyebrows taut. I think she intimidated most people into playing fair. People other than the Slytherins, that is.

            I, as I’ve mentioned before, pranced around being the life of the party, reveling in my own specialness. I entertained guys, made a few bets myself, ensured the protecting charms were still in working order on the room, and made sure everybody was out by two am, tops. Sometimes I chatted up Lucius, drawing him closer into my ever-tightening snare of lust. He was so beautiful… eyes like fallen diamonds, glittering up from silver encasements.

            After my ‘date’ with James, I had expected him to start showing up to my gambling nights. Sirius and Peter were there after all, and even if he hadn’t wanted to gamble, he could have just hung out like they did. For some reason though, he never came, despite my countless hints dropped ever so precariously in our few, but lengthy, conversations. I would keep one eye on the door all the time, convinced he’d finally come one night…

            There were a lot of things I didn’t know about James, however. Like on that night I’d been so sure he’d kiss me, all he did was take my food. Sure, I was attracted to him, but he seemed so distant. I found myself longing to talk to him some nights, but he was busy planning some new crazy stunt with Sirius, or losing horribly at wizarding chess to Remus. When we did talk, which was not that often, he didn’t show any sign of acknowledging my femininity whatsoever. I was a bit put out over this, since usually boys were at least somewhat interested in me.

            Occasionally my mind brushed upon the theory that maybe James Potter, super star, was gay, but that couldn’t be right. He flirted and romanced practically every other girl in our year or above, and I never saw him do that with any boy. Besides, it was slightly nauseating to picture him with Sirius in those Quidditch team locker rooms… steamy hot showers, threadbare white towels, wild, wet hair…

            When we did talk, I never wanted it to stop. He had the cleverest things to say, things that I would think about for weeks afterward, thinking up equally as charming responses three days too late. I didn’t have a crush on him, per se, but I was certainly enamored with his wit and intelligence. If I was a kitten, James Potter was my new ball of string.

            He didn’t have a girlfriend. I didn’t intend to fill that position any time soon myself, but it made a girl wonder. Why would someone that wonderful be single? What was wrong with him that I was missing? Where was his one major flaw? Sometimes we would go days without speaking so much as a ‘hi’ to each other, and others we’d stay up talking late into the night in the common room, about all sorts of things.

            I’d learned a few things about him. He was a big brother. He had a little sister, Melissa, who was ten. She thought the world of him and he was always trying to make her smile at home, trying to get a laugh out of her. James was into photography, especially black and white prints, because he was attracted to the way objects would just prance off after you took them. I tried to explain how Muggle pictures don’t do that, but he couldn’t seem to grasp the concept correctly so I just let it drop. He liked the color emerald green (insert big blush here), chocolate frogs, and Quidditch; he hoped to be captain some day.

            His father had a desk job at the Ministry, something concerning international sporting affairs, and his mother was an up-and-coming wizarding fashion designer. He liked a few Muggle bands, like the Beach Boys and the Beatles, but other than that he was clueless about the world from which I came from. James took great pride in his pranking and his accomplishments, such as the Marauder’s Map, and loved his friends dearly. He had so much trust in them… especially Sirius… it was unbelievable. So much compassion from an ordinary young man like him, when I had none at all. He marveled at my cynicism and never quit asking me questions, usually beginning with the word ‘why’.

            But how could I explain ‘why’ to James Potter, so bright-eyed and intelligent? How could someone so unique, so attractive, and so invigorating possibly grasp my concepts of the world? I wasn’t precisely depressed, but I was a lot more sad than I oftentimes seemed. I would offer him an explanation when he asked ‘why’, but he never seemed to fully understand. That worried me.

            _What would you do if you saw your idol fall?_

            Fourteen. I was very young, wasn’t I? So young it’s barely believable I really did all of these things. James, though, was a kid still at fourteen, which was yet another reason why I envied him. He had had the chance to grow up properly, so he could relax and act his age. I was deprived of that until I started coming to Hogwarts, so I suppose I acted a lot older than I really had to…

            It’s confusing, and I don’t expect anyone to really be able to comprehend it. I’m an intricate spider web, conceived in sin and weaved with little tragedies.

_             Take me as I am; this may mean you’ll have to be a stronger man… _

* * *

            One Saturday night, the one right before Halloween, I was just in a bad mood. I didn’t feel like entertaining fifty people that evening… I felt sick. I didn’t want to go to Madame Pomfrey’s though; the flighty young nurse would have made me stay there all night so she could ‘monitor’ me. I didn’t feel like doing that either. I just wanted to be by myself.

            Arabella helped me get dressed. She laced up my corset, special ordered for gambling nights, brushed my hair out, and put my make up on for me while I struggled to breathe correctly. You know when you _think_ about breathing and suddenly it becomes tremendously hard? You start to panic, thinking you’re going to suffocate. That was what was happening to me, although I wasn’t prone to doing so. Aria kept saying ‘shhh’ in a soothing sort of way, asking me if I was sure I wanted to go that night… I kept telling her yes, I did, but when I nearly fainted away on the bed, she insisted she could handle one Saturday night on her own.

            Reluctantly, I let her go, hoping that nothing would go wrong. I literally could not afford to be found out. Getting caught would not only get me expelled, but bust my capital as well. I also fervently hoped James wouldn’t show up while I wasn’t there. I didn’t seriously think he would, since he’d yet to show any interest at all, but still. It began to rain outside.

            I soon drifted, or fainted--I can’t quite recall--away and that was the end of my misery. I awoke an hour later to find that not only was it still raining outside, but someone was trying to sneak out of my dorm room. Sitting straight up in bed, I did a double take; the person tiptoeing out was a boy. "Hey!" I yelled. The retreating figure actually blanched, as though he’d been struck by something very unpleasant indeed. He turned around, revealing his sweet face. "Oh, it’s you, Remus."

            I relaxed and settled back down into my pillows. "Sorry," he apologized quickly. "James and I were just worried--"

            "James is here, too?"

            "--That’s beside the point. Arabella saw us when she was going to your… gambling--"

            "Damn it!"

            "--Don’t get mad, Lily. She just asked us to baby-sit--"

            "Baby-sit?!"

            "I mean, make sure you were doing okay and--"

            "Oh, Remus, _God_ ," James poked his head in the room. "Hi, Lily," he said, walking back in, smiling at me. "Feeling better I assume. We would’ve woken you up sooner but you were snoring like a warthog." Pitter-patter went the rain.

            "Excuse me?" I blinked, and I could feel my body growing tense with anxiety. "I do not snore." James Potter had heard me snore? Ugh.

            "Yeah you do," James smiled, crashing into a big chair with candy wrappers littering the floor around it. Remus nodded his agreement, gingerly sitting down on a stool opposite James. A gust of wind picked up outside the windows, hushing us all for a minute.

            "Well, I…" I blinked.

            James just laughed. "It’s okay, everyone snores when they’re sick. But you better be thankful for us being here, because we were on the verge of a great pranking idea. Right, Remus?"

            "Yeah," the pale boy said, nodding his sleepy head again. "One on the Slytherins and everything…"

            James’s eyes flickered briefly over to his friend, and I caught a note of concern in his voice when he said, "Hey… Reem, she’s awake now. You go on and get some rest, buddy. I’ll sit with our little death flower."

            I frowned. _James Potter has dizzy eyes that hide painted angel pains_. I looked at Remus myself. The boy was fragile looking, with dark circles under his hazelish eyes. For a moment my thoughts flitted to Lucius. _So lucky, so strong, so proud…_ A shiver coursed through my vaguely over-heated body and I shut my eyes, blocking off the world.

            I silently noted to myself, not yet opening my eyes, that Remus muttered his meager thanks and wandered off to his room. I was left alone with my idol, for the second time in a month, but I didn’t want to open my eyes and face him. Not just yet. The guy had heard me ‘snore like a warthog’. And he had showed genuine concern for someone just now, which made him very real. It made him even more fabulous than he had been before.

            "So… you never properly answered my question," he said, in that teasing voice of his. "Why do you close your eyes so much?"

            "That rain," I said quietly, "that rain outside. It splashes deep down into my heart sometimes."

            "What do you mean?"

            "It runs like sadness down windowpanes you know." I opened my vibrant eyes and James flinched. He probably hadn’t expected me to lock my gaze on his like I did.

            "I’m not sure what you mean."

            "That’s okay," I stood up, stretching my legs a little. "How long have you been here?"

            "An hour, maybe less."

            "Did I really snore?"

            "Yeah."

            "God _damn_ it."

            "Simmer down there, it’s really fine."

            I sighed. He stood up too. "Do you want me to go? Because I could go."

            "Yeah, whatever you want."

            "Unless you want me to stay--"

            "Oh."

            "I mean, do you want me to--do you want--do you want to uh, come walk around downstairs with me or something? We could grab a bite maybe."

            "That’s okay," I looked straight at him. "I’m twisted right now. I feel better though. I should probably go entertain people… besides… Remus didn’t look too great. Maybe you should go and make sure he’s okay."

            "He’s always like--"

            "Like what?" I frowned deeply, and he blinked.

            "Nevermind. I’ll see you soon then, Lily. Have a good one." James turned and walked slowly out of my room. I shut the door behind him and bit my lip. For some reason that had been unsettling.

            A little voice tickled in the back of my mind… Lily and James and Lily and James and Lily and James and Lily and James and… I pressed my body up against the cool wall, swallowed deeply, and shut my eyes again. I felt like socking something, and my throat hurt.

            What a glamorous world I lived in. I had money, I was quite smart, and I was actually popular enough to have boy troubles. Everything is plastic when you’re fourteen though. No matter how ‘adult’ you think you are, you’re not. You’re just a misguided girl, caught up in the tangled web that is life.

            Suddenly I felt very lonely. Making my way to our hidden party room, my thoughts fluttered throughout my tired brain. When I spoke the charm to open the door, however, I forced a smile to my lips so that everyone would perceive me as fine. The door slid upon command, and I waltzed in with a perfect spring to my step.

            The room was loud with blasting Beach Boys music mixed with the hum of laughter, the tinkling of glasses, and the shuffling of cards. "Lily!" cried my adoring crowd, and Narcissa rushed up to me, a tray of drinks in hand.

            "Ooh, Lily honey, are you okay? Arabella told us all you were perfectly flushed when she left you. We were all so worried!" She gave me one of the non-touching kisses on either cheek, smiling her head off that I had arrived.

            I ‘kissed’ back, and looked around for Lucius. "Yes, I’m feeling much better now," I said, swallowing hard on my smarting throat. I scooped a drink up off of Narcissa’s plate and had to bite my lip to keep from spitting it out. She was serving firewhiskey. That definitely meant Lucius was there--and that practically everyone was dead drunk. I noted a group of seventh years bobbing and weaving as they walked across the room, and thanked God no one had to drive a car home.

            Some kid crashed into me, laughing his ass off, so I got a move on, telling Narcie I’d see her later. She waved exuberantly and trotted off, sweet little smile permanently glued to her face. _Like a wax figurine…_

            Lucius, sure enough, was in the far back corner, drunk as a donkey. For some reason I didn’t much feel like getting groped by him that night, so I found myself over to Sirius and Peter. When Sirius’s entourage of girls saw me approaching, they all gave little "ooh’s" and skittered off. I rolled my eyes.

            "Hey, Black," I said, sidling tiredly into his lap.

            "Hel _lo_ Lily," he grinned wolfishly, as he was getting a great view of my cleavage. I crossed my legs and on impulse, whispered in his ear.

            "Or should I say, hello, Padfoot…" I traced a finger down his neck and Sirius gave a shiver, though whether from desire or fright, I couldn’t tell. His Adam’s apple bobbed though, so I giggled a tinkling giggle and began to trace my fingers down his spinal cord. "That’s right," I whispered dangerously, under the pretense of seducing. "James told me. Funny he didn’t discuss it with you guys, though."

            Sirius shot me a look and I shrugged prettily. "Oh ,Sirius!" I said loudly so no one would listen in. He balled his hands into tight little fists. "I won’t tell, though. I promise. Okay?"

            "Lily--" he whispered in a hasty tone, "I already know you know and I know you won’t tell. But get off my lap right now."

            "Why?" I frowned. No one ever told me to get off before.

            "Because that’s no broomstick in my pocket."

            Peter Pettigrew glanced at us, scrunched up his nose like the hoity-toity idiot he was, and then persisted to block out our conversation. I sent him an annoyed look.

            "Bye Sirius," I said, giving one last tingly touch to his tailbone. When I hopped off, you could totally tell he’d spoke the truth. Feeling much better, and extremely confident in myself, I walked off to find Arabella, smirking all the way.

            I was such a bitch.

            Better than that, even. I was _the_ bitch.

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** Author’s Note: ** Okay, shoot me now. The better writing starts in the next chapter, not this one, OBVIOUSLY. Sorry. :) Review me anyway?


	6. Fractured

** Deconstruct, a Memoir **

By Solarism

_ Chapter Five - Fractured _

{This chapter’s song is “Made Up Love Song #43” by Guillemots.}

 

I took to watching him. I’d write things down, captivated by his behavior and enthralled with his reckless speech. James Potter would sit in the Great Hall discussing Quidditch strategies with Sirius Black, easily chat up a few Ravenclaw girls, and proceed to slurp down his pumpkin juice as if he was just a regular guy, nothing special there at all. He always had something witty to say; he was always laughing, always elbowing Sirius, chuckling with Peter, or grinning at Remus... His friends obviously played a large part in his life, and I could tell just by watching from afar that he valued them above all else.

            As the weather turned cold that year, as November progressed, I began to understand the mystery and glamour that surrounded my idol and his friends. Sirius Black was like rock candy; hated by parents, loved by small children, and irresistible to the more rebellious students at Hogwarts. Remus Lupin was a clean cut sort of boy, and he preferred simplicity over complicated romances. James was rather a cross between them both. He loved to laugh. He found humor in the worst of things, charmed your socks off at the slightest pretence, and treated everyone like they were truly and sincerely special.

            There was more to him than being some dopey prankster, though. His remarkably handsome looks seemed to reflect his intelligence. Oftentimes I would see him walking around, his nose in a paperback book, most of them with foreign titles I’d never heard of before. Sometimes he’d stoop over and write a note to himself in the margin of the books, careful to avoid the text, and other times he’d studiously ponder an abandoned game of chess left in the common room. James liked to pick things up off the ground and put them in his pockets to examine later. He was a really weird, but nonetheless striking, sort of boy.

            I observed his reckless behavior. He liked to do stunts on his broomstick, causing endless amounts of grief to the Quidditch team captain, or pull off daredevil pranks no one else could ever even fathom. In short, James was opinionated, happy, and in love with life. 

I, however, was not.

            I did not like myself very much. I did not feel satisfied with existence. I felt I should be doing more than what I was doing right then, and I knew that my gambling nights, while a lot of fun, were dangerous. If someone were to tell on me, if my protection charms were to fail, what would I do? I didn’t know. Maybe I liked being so risky. Maybe some subconscious part of me actually wanted to get caught, wanted the recognition. I’m not sure. My relationship with Lucius, if that’s what you call it, was far from perfect as well. It was a co-dependent situation if anything… he needed to abuse and I just needed to use.

            The day that James saw the bruises on my arms he had assumed Lucius had been hurting me. That wasn’t entirely true. I did bruise easily, for as ferocious as my manner was, I happened to be quite a weak little girl. Lucius did tend to grab me though, and he did tend to sharply turn my wrists, whether he was angry or not. As I explained before, he was demanding and I knew that perfectly well. (I didn’t know it then, but the bruises I acquired from hanging out with him were just a taste of what would happen later.) He was kind to me, of course, sweet as pie, actually… but there was still something strangely foreboding about Lucius even then that I could never quite put my finger on, even then.

            My slight friendship with James interested him more than it should have, but I never thought about it twice. After all, I was only fourteen, and other people were interested in the two of us as well. Sirius, Remus, and Peter had been outraged, I later learned, when James had proposed telling me about the Marauder’s Map. They’d argued, but James had been fluent and persuasive, and the vote (for they always voted on things, apparently) had tabulated out to be three to one, Peter being the only Marauder still opposing.

            Old Padfoot and Moony were certainly more open with me, and for the first time since I’d met them, they both said ‘hi’ to me on a regular basis. I didn’t talk with them much that year, for James was my main concentration, but I picked up bits and pieces here and there. Remus liked chess (although I’d guessed that just from looking at him); Sirius liked to sleep and eat. Neither had ever truly been in love, both were fond of their families, and occasionally they would dress up as each other for the day, using charms to exchange hair colors and facial features. They were also just as devoted to James as he was to them.

            I didn’t care for Peter Pettigrew, however. He seemed rather conniving. His feelings were pretty near mutual about me, I gathered, if more obvious and less creative. We avoided each other in silent agreement, and if you were to ask me now if I wish I’d been nicer to him, I’d tell you just what I would’ve at fourteen: I don’t give a damn and I don’t care what you think about that.

\- - - - -

"So what do you want?" Arabella asked me, slowly brushing out her lovely black hair. I flipped a page in my book, made a note on the literature James-style, and shrugged.

            "What do you mean?"

            "I mean," she said, narrowing her eyes and frowning at me as I struggled to fit my whole thought down in the margins, "what do you want? Like, you know, for Christmas and all that good stuff."

            "I don’t know…" I said, setting my quill down and thoughtfully tipping my chin up toward the setting sun. "I haven’t given it much thought. You don’t have to get me anything."

            "Don’t be silly," she said, still watching me intently, "I always get you something. That’s what friends are for, right? Come on, what do you want? I’ll make it happen."

            I shifted uneasily for a moment under her gaze, feeling like I was cheating at cards or something. She quirked an eyebrow, dropped her brush into her book bag, and folded her hands in her lap. Realizing silence wasn’t passable that day, I shrugged again. "I don’t want anything tangible. I want something, I don’t know, different. Something lasting."

            "Nothing lasts forever, darling." Aria put her head on my shoulder as we watched the sunset from the Quidditch pitch bleachers. I sighed and chucked my book aside. She was right.

            "I know…" I said softly, looking back down to the green field below us. "Well… except for, of course…"

            "I knew it!" Arabella snapped, sitting up, her eyes glittering. "I should have guessed it from the beginning. Oh, Lily. You want love." She looked at me as if I had been planning on feeding her to a pack of wild wolves or something. She looked, in fact, almost hurt. "Don’t you?"

            "Would that be so bad?" I asked her quietly, tracing my fingers slowly over the wooden bench.

            "Yes," Arabella told me, "it would be."

            "Why? Everyone else has someone who cares about them. It’s time I did too."

            "You have Lucius."

            "Lucius doesn’t love me. God, I’m fourteen." I looked up to say something else, but before I could, her eyes steadily locked on mine. I felt penetrated and utterly helpless to her perceptive nature. I always did.

            "You met his mother."

            "One time," I said, wondering what she was playing at. "At the train station. You remember; third year and all. It was nothing."

            "Nothing?" Arabella crossed her legs and tilted her head at me. "Malfoy’s leave nothing to chance; you know that as well as I do. No, that little meeting was planned and scheduled months in advance. I seem to recall his mother insulting you, mm, did she not?"

            "That’s right, yes, she did," I grimaced with distaste. "She commented on me being Muggle-born. Called me a Mudblood."

            "Stupid old twit that she is, I’d bet you anything that she forbade dear Luce from hanging around you any longer. I bet you she even told Mr. Malfoy that his son was hanging around Muggle-borns now. You know I have nothing against them, of course, but the Malfoy family is a little backward. Lucius, I think, was maybe even severely punished for being your friend." Seeing my discomfort, Arabella softened her voice a little. "Yes, he’s risking a great deal by being seen with you at all, and so openly, too! He must care something horrible for you, my dear. And that’s nothing to stick your nose up at."

            I smiled slightly and she patted my hand.

            "No, perhaps he doesn’t love you. This age isn’t quite opportune for romances of that sort. But he will, Lily; he’ll love you till his dying day, and soon enough as well."

            "How do you know?" I asked, as the sun streaked the sky with golden yellows and soft pinks and a few twinges of majestic purple. (It was going to be a beautiful evening.)

            “Because," Arabella said, sitting up a little straighter and letting a sweet smile escape from her lips, "I know everything."

            I smiled back at her and we sat in silence for a minute or two, watching the sun sink lower and lower. She rested her head up against my shoulder a moment in a rather sleepy fashion. It was companionable to sit there like that, on a crisp November evening, discussing what was to possibly come. I was quite happy with her prediction and blearily contented in the sun’s dying rays until she spoke again.

            "But Lily," Arabella said in a low tone, "be careful… Please be careful of him."

            "Sure," I told her, laying my head atop hers. "I’ll be careful."

            And there we sat, just like that, until the sun set and darkness cloaked the earth.

\- - - - -

In mid-November, I sat in the common room, studiously doing my homework and perfecting my dainty handwriting. I’d always been proud of my cursive; it was beautiful and spidery and flourished. No one could take that away from me.

            It was crowded in there, for it was a cold night with no activities planned, and no one really felt like going to sleep. Remus and Peter were arguing over philosophy loudly, and because they drew my attention, I couldn’t help but notice Sirius and James were not among the crowd. I wondered where they were; planning a prank perhaps, or sneaking in a few more hours of Quidditch practice--or maybe they had double dates, up in Hogsmeade, sharing the same table I had sat at the previous month…? I did not like the last idea and tried hard to push it out of my mind as I calculated the precise formula for an outstanding truth potion.

            I didn’t have to wait long to overhear where they’d been, for as soon as I’d finished my work, the portrait burst open and in came James, followed by a vigorous Sirius, both arguing at no one in particular. Both boys had wind-strewn hair, dancing and vivid eyes, and flushed cheeks. It appeared as if they’d been running, and I saw no giggling girls blushing red at their heels, so I thankfully eliminated the possibility of dates. Unless, perhaps, they were of another house? I shook my head and wrote my name atop the parchment: Lily Evans, Gryffindor, Year Four.

            "—It was entirely their fault—"

            "—The dirty scoundrels—"

            "—James, do you think we could—"

            "—No, too messy—"

            "—Better ask—"

            "—Entirely not our fault—"

            "—Those dirty scoundrels—"

            James blinked, realized people were looking at him, and shut his mouth. Sirius just rolled his eyes impatiently and pulled his best friend over to Remus and Peter. I was near enough to hear a few snatches of conversation, and, my curiosity aroused, I proceeded to listen in.

            "Remus, the Slytherins…"

            "…Snape was there…"

            "What? What do you…"

            "But, you guys, Professor…"

            "…suspect…"

            "The cloak is…."

            "Just so… …safe, we’re… we’ll just have to…"

            "…Revenge…"

            "How did they… pulling a prank?"

            "…idea. Probably…"

            "Malfoy."

            "Malfoy."

            "Malfoy."

            "Yes, Malfoy, he…"

            "Ask… maybe she… but we have to be…"

            "I don’t…"

            "…Lily…"

            I stared. They murmured for a few minutes, but soon James was standing in front of me, a big grin plastered on the front of his face. "Hi, Lily," he said.

            "Hi."

            "This may sound a little rude," he laughed, brushing some shaggy hair out of his eyes. _James Potter has dizzy eyes that have swirling pearl mists inside, dizzy, dizzy, shake me up, starry-eyed, dance and dazzle, dizzy, dizzy, dizzy…_ "But I wanted to talk to you about Severus and Lucius. Ha, nasty little names they have, both ending in ‘us’. Makes them sound pretentious."

            "Ask away," I said, rolling up my parchment and tying a scarlet ribbon around it, noting silently that Remus and Sirius also had names that ended similarly. I tried to sound bored and disinterested, but I think he saw through it.

            "Great," he grinned, pulling out a chair and straddling it. "I just wanted to see if you had any theories on them knowing what we’re doing before we do it. See, me and Sirius had this great prank planned. Like, revolutionary, you know? We’ve been working on it for days. We were going to put Filibuster Fireworks under the Slytherin table in the Great Hall, and then shoot water at it tomorrow morning. When we went to plant them there though, Malfoy and his girlfriend--"

            "Girlfriend?"

            "I mean Snape. Anyway, Malfoy and his girlfriend were in there just about falling all over themselves, flirting up a storm--you could clearly see they were going to snog any second--and we heard them talking about catching us in the act of putting the fireworks down…

            "Luckily we were under the invisibility cloak and they didn’t know we were there. But for some reason they knew about our prank, and the only people who knew about it were us Marauders. So now we can’t figure out they knew, you know?"

            I blinked at him. "Sure."

            "Any ideas as to how Snape and Malfoy knew?"

            "Why are you asking me?"

            "Well,” he paused uncertainly, “You kind of, well, you make out with Malfoy and all…"

            I felt my teeth grit.

            "Any ideas, Lily?" James asked brightly.

            I was silent for a moment. "Do any of you wear pure amethyst?"

            "What?" he frowned at me, obviously a bit disappointed. "No, of course not. Girls wear that, not us."

            "No, it can be in the form of a pendant," I said quickly, feeling the need to impress him. "If you wear an amethyst pendant and someone sees it, they can hex it to see what’s on your mind. It’d be hard to hex a small moving target of course, but it could be done. I’ve seen Lucius do it before."

            "Thanks," James nodded at me, looking a bit puzzled. He got up, pushed his chair in, and walked stiffly back over to Peter. I saw him tap the squat boy on his shoulder, motion for Sirius and Remus to follow, and head upstairs to their dorm.

            I shut my textbook and wondered for a long while.

 

 

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**Author's Note:** Well, so the writing begins to improve, finally. :) Please just review it and let me know that I'm not entirely insane for reposting this story. It'll help a lot. Thanks. :/  



	7. Refuge Built to Flee

** Deconstruct, a Memoir **

By Solarism

_ Chapter Six – Refuge Built To Flee _

{This chapter’s song is “Rehab” by Amy Winehouse.}

 

 

   
                "Your eyes," James told me, "are strange."

            "So are yours," I smiled at him, and felt the electricity pump its way through my bloodstream. I was on fire and his eyes were locked on mine and mine alone.

            "They’re dizzy," I added, "like shooting stars, sort of. They always change. I’m quite normal compared to you, thanks." _Why don’t you kiss me?_ I’d been expecting that he would, but he still showed no sign whatsoever of acknowledging my femininity.

            He smiled and shrugged, brushing some lint off the front of his robes. We were in the library, having been partnered together for a Potions assignment, but the reason we were together didn’t matter. The moment was perfect, for we were alone, and I could ask him anything and he’d answer and we’d become even deeper friends...

            "So, anyway," I said, trying very strenuously to sound absolutely casual, "are you staying for Christmas?"

            "No," he said, and a wave of disappointment washed over me, "I don’t think so. I miss my sister and my mum and dad. Melissa’s been writing to me lately, begging for me to come home and give her piggy back rides," James smiled, pausing to trace his finger down a spine of a book, and then continued in a whimsical voice. "I remember when she was little, three maybe, she’d tug on the hem of my robes and look up at me with her little dumpling face. ‘Love Jay,’ she’d say. Never been very good at saying my full name…" he trailed off uncertainly, and I pondered his sincerity. "Christmas is a big deal at my house. We get a tree with all the trimmings and Mum makes all the food without magic. Dad tries to make himself useful, but he only ends up setting something on fire usually. It wouldn’t be the holidays, in fact, if he didn’t." He opened the book and turned to face me. "What about you? Got plans?"

            "Actually, no." I sighed and leaned back in my chair.

            "No?" James asked with interest, looking up from his text. "I thought everybody had plans for the holidays. Mum said I could invite friends to spend vacation with us, but everyone was busy. Sirius might pop over at some point, though. We live about a half an hour from each other by broom."

            "My family isn’t what you’d call, well, holiday-loving," I shrugged.

            "How’s that?"

            "Well," I said awkwardly, "for one, my sister, Petunia, absolutely detests me. She thinks the witch thing is vile. Whenever I’m around she makes me feel miserable. Not that my mother ever does anything to stop her. My mother hates me, too."

            "I doubt that," James laughed.

            "You would," I said, "but you don’t know how it is at home. My mother never married my father, and in turn she got disowned by her parents, since she was Catholic. You know what that is, right? A Muggle religion? Well, anyway. So she takes out her frustration on me. We barely speak. She just locks herself in her room and cries when I’m around. It’s depressing. I don’t think I could stand her bursting into tears for the umpteenth time on Christmas Day, you know?"

            "Hmmm," said James.

            "I think I’ll be much happier here, thanks. This is my home now. If I could, I’d stay summers here too, even if it was all by myself."

            James sighed, delicately shut his book, and stood up. "Come on, Lily," he said, a frown etched into his brow, "we’re not going to get any studying done here. Let’s go walk around and talk. It’s starting to snow outside, I think."

            "Oh," I blinked, standing up as well. "This is due in a week," I started, but he laid a gentle hand on my shoulder and that was the death of any argument I’d thought of offering. His touch sent chills down my spine; it made my mind freeze and my heart practically stop. I let him gently guide me out of the musty old library and down the hall to our dorms. He led me into the common room and made me sit down for a moment while he ran up to get the cloak and the Marauder’s Map.

            When we left, he silently took my hand and led me down a passage I’d never been in before. I didn’t even ask where we were going. I didn’t need to. I told James about my house, about my childhood, as we walked. He listened and nodded, never correcting me or giving advice, no matter how obnoxiously dramatic I must’ve sounded. "It’s like I’m stuck in a little glass dome or something," I said with anguish at one point, "and I’m pounding my fists trying desperately to get out, but my mother just keeps crying and her tears fill up the dome and drown me…"

            James nodded and guided me down a sharp turn.

            "I hate the way everything has to be my fault," I told him, staring angrily into the darkness ahead of us. "I hate how my sister calls me names. She calls me a freak. Sometimes, God, do I think she’s right. I mean, look at me. I’m in a school for witches and wizards and even my own mother hates me. It’s just not normal. It isn’t--it just _isn’t_. You’d think at Christmas my family would at least pretend to like me, but no, I’m too freakish for them to even make the stupid effort. Every time my mother looks in my eyes she goes real quiet. I have my dad’s eyes, you know,” I said. “I think that’s why my mum hates me and not Petunia. I look like him. I am her God-forsaken sin with her lost love’s green eyes and every time she looks at me, she remembers and she’s disgusted. Do you know how infuriating that is? And I can’t do anything about it. I can’t be anything less than who I am, no matter how much she wishes I could be someone different. Hell, I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. I just know one thing for certain, and that’s that I don’t want to be like my mother. The holidays always make me so sad. Everyone else has a family to go home to, and what do I have? Two people who wish I were dead. It’s just too much. Oh, James, you should just see them when I have to come home for summer vacation. They both look so ashamed and horrified. It’s all I can do to stay away from them during Christmas. Just because I’m miserable and alone doesn’t mean that they need to be plagued by my company, too..."

            Silently, James pulled me out into the snow, in a strange deserted alcove of the castle I’d never seen before. I shivered and he threw the Invisibility Cloak over us, which provided a comfortable warmth. "Lily," he said gently, "would you like to come to my house for the holidays? I’m sure my mum would be more than happy to have you."

            "Oh," I said, my heart rising to my throat. "No, I couldn’t. I barely know you. It’d be intruding."

            "Hardly," James shook his head wryly and smiled. "You’re fascinating, and I consider you to be a friend of mine. We could use Christmas as an opportunity to get to know each other better, don’t you think?"

            "Maybe," I said uncertainly, my cheeks blushing pink.

            "Right," James said, "so I’ll owl her tonight about it. You’ll love it at my house, I promise. You can play with Melissa if you get sick of me. She’ll love an older girl around the house. And Mum’ll probably want you to pose for her. You’ll go home with a dozen new designer robes, courtesy of Mrs. Georgia Potter. She’s forever designing things and she’ll love having a girl to try new things out on. And Dad’ll love you too. He’s fascinated with all my friends."

            I blinked at him gratefully, not knowing how to express my joy or polite puzzlement. It was odd. James Potter was inviting me over to his house for the Christmas holidays. What a pivotal year it had been so far! I went from watching my dearly beloved idol from afar to spending the holidays with him and his family? It seemed nothing short of a fantasy tale. "Th-thank you," I managed to stammer finally.

            James laughed. "No trouble," he assured me, "I wanted a friend along anyway. And I’m sure you could cancel your gambling nights while everyone’s away, right?"

            "Sure," I said slowly, not believing my good luck. "But James, wouldn’t you rather Peter or someone? Surely he’d be able to come."

            "Actually, I didn’t even bother to ask him. Remember when you told me about amethyst pendants? Well, he’d been wearing one all along if you can believe it. We were all pretty disgusted he’d been so stupid. I don’t think I could tolerate him the whole Christmas holiday. Besides, like I said, you intrigue me. I’d like to get to know you more. When we talk you always seem so animated. I want to know why."

            "Well, if you’re sure your mother wouldn’t mind a girl coming… I’d be delighted. Thank you, James."

            "Actually, I’ve never had a girl over," he paused for a second, blushing slightly. I smiled, rather pleased, and we stared at each other awkwardly for a moment. "Well, we’d better get inside then, it’s a bit cold. I’m ready to study."

            "Me too," I nodded, biting my lip. He directed me back to the library and there we worked, in perfect silence, for the rest of the day.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & &

Snow blanketed the grounds of Hogwarts nicely, slowly hushing all the usual hustle and bustle that went around. James and I continued to be slightly friends. His invitation hadn’t changed our number of conversations, nor had it affected the ones that did take place. The only thing that had happened was that a warm welcome was extended to me from James’s parents, and a few minor details had been exchanged by way of what I should bring.

            Arabella had been suspicious when she’d heard of where I was going, and who with. She’d questioned me about Lucius, and I had told her to keep it quiet, for James inviting me over meant nothing but a healthy friendship and perhaps a bit of pity on his part. "No one should be alone on the holidays," I’d told her.

            "You aren’t even religious," she’d retorted with a snort.

            "It’s the principle of the thing," I’d said, shrugging off the sneaking suspicion that perhaps I was warming to my idol in a way I shouldn’t have been. I did, after all, not only expect him to kiss me, but I wanted him to, too.

            I didn’t dare tell Lucius. He continued to smother me with kisses amid his drunken and tasteless breath, and he managed to get to second base any number of times. I could tell he wanted to get a home run, my Christmas present to him, but I was not one to be swayed by other people’s wants so easily.

            He excited me. He’d run his hands down my body, skillfully suckling my pert breasts, and got pleasure from my deep and desire-filled moans. Often times I felt ready to surrender myself to him entirely, but then he would grow impatient and try to force his way down my skirt. This would disagree with me and I would push him forcefully away. I soon acquired many bruises from rough nights like these, as he would grab my arms and wrists with passion and burning frustration. This occupation kept him from guessing about James, and where I would be come Christmastime.

            Narcissa had gotten herself a quaint little boyfriend, someone by the name of Lestrange, although only after both Arabella and I had approved him. Aria was hardened and icy. She had no want (or need) of a man, she often said, and insisted she would die alone and rich and powerfully majestic. When she started off on a tangent like this, I would of course support her, knowing in the back of my mind I would never be able to do the same for myself.

            My gambling nights went smoothly by--nothing notable to mention there. Mundungus Fletcher was still the main source of my income, and Sirius Black was as always extremely and undeniably popular. I took to noticing that dear Remus (who really was quite a sweetheart), became frightfully ill all too often. He never quite looked right; never surely healthy. I worried for him, but James would always assure me he was fine. In short, life passed as it would, until finally it was the morning of Christmas vacation, and I was gathering my bags for the train.

            James and I sat alone together in a compartment, talking. He told me of his family, ‘so that I would know what I was getting myself into’; about his father, his mother, and very fondly of his sister. He had had a brother too, he told me, three years older than himself, who had died when he was only six. Nine years old and accidentally killed during a wizarding duel…

            "Melissa, unfortunately, looks like me," he grinned playfully, rifling through his bags for a picture. "Only her hair stays put and she doesn’t particularly need glasses. I do, you know. Mum says I’ll need them for sure when I get older. Melissa won’t, though. She’s too pretty for them, Mum says. Sure she’s pretty I guess, for a sister, but she still manages to look just like me. It’s the strangest thing."

            "You’re awfully fond of her, aren’t you?" I smiled affectionately at him, and he nodded several times, obviously wishing he could gather her in his arms at that very moment. He pushed through the contents of his bag and shook his head.

            "No, I can’t find a picture. No matter. You’ll see her soon enough. She’s real excited I’m bringing a girl home for Christmas. She thinks you’re her gift or something," he laughed brightly, and his eyes danced. "Thank you Lily,"—a pause—"this means a lot to me. And I’d hate to think of you in that huge old castle, alone, on Christmas. It just isn’t right. I’m not religious or anything, and I know you aren’t either, but the holidays mean a lot to me. I like to see people smile. I like to make people smile. You coming over this year is going to be great… you’ll love it. I promise."

            And I looked deep into his eyes and let my heart pound. _James Potter has dizzy eyes, flashing brown mixed with gold, shimmering flecks of hazel, green, oh so green, twisting, turning, bending, flurry, mix and melt and flow altogether, I want to feel you scream…_ "You…" I said softly, blinking at him in a delicate sort of awe, "are very welcome… James." I spoke his name and looked down to the thinly carpeted floor, letting the heat rise to my cheeks and the thoughts in my head swirl. He smiled down at me and turned his beautifully confident gaze out the window. I wrapped my thin little arms around myself and breathed in deeply. James Potter was my idol and here he was… I shut my eyes and listened to him talk.

            "Melissa will probably want you to play dolls with her or something stupid like that. She can be such a pest for a ten-year-old. And just to think, she’ll be at Hogwarts next year! Jesus, time flies fast. I remember my first year. I was so homesick I could hardly stand it. She was only, oh, six then. Very cute, when she’d look up and say ‘Love Jay’. Of course I had Sirius at school, and Remus--I’ve known _them_ since I was born, practically, but it’s always been weird to be away from Melissa for so long. Yes, I guess I am rather fond of her," he chuckled to himself. "It’s like she’s my other half. Anyway, if she asks to play dolls with you just ignore her. You’re my guest after all, not hers. I’ll show you my secret hiding spots. They should be awesome looking now that it’s winter. See, we have a pretty big house, and a lot of grounds, too. Everything is charmed to fit in with Mum’s stylish tastes. It’ll be great to be back home. I’ve missed it a lot.

            "Do you read? What am I saying, of course you read, and I know you like to, too. You carry around books like I do. I have a small library going at home. It’s wonderful. Dad usually picks me up a whole slew of books whenever he goes out. He’s always done that, since I was old enough to know what books are. I love to write in the margins too. It’s cool. That scientist… Albert Einstein? You’ve heard of him, surely. Making some amazing advances in physics. He writes in the margins of his books. How can you go wrong when someone as brilliant as Einstein is doing the same thing you are? He’s no wizard, of course, but he’s an exceptionally bright Muggle. I always try to teach Melissa about him, and my parents too, because I find him so fascinating. They always laugh. I think they find me boring, because I read so much. I just can’t get enough of books. Einstein should write a book, if he hasn’t already. That would be interesting.

            "I know I come off as a stupid prankster. I consider myself an intellectual though. An up and coming intellectual of the wizarding world," James smiled, and paused a second to catch his breath. "Besides, since I’m going to be an Auror (it’s so cool that you are too), some of the stuff I read in my books ought to be helpful sometime in that job. I mean, you gotta know your stuff, right? Gotta research more than just the Dark Arts; you have to get to the meaning behind the madness. Frank Longbottom, you know, in third year, is dead set on being an Auror as well. We always discuss tactics together. He’s got a good head about him, that guy. A lot of pimples maybe, but a good head. I’d work with him after graduation if he was still interested in going into the same field. Same with you, you know, it’d be nice to have some familiar faces around the workplace."

            "Yeah," I said, looking up and catching those amazing eyes again. "It’d be nice. It would be really nice."

            "Yeah," James grinned, "I know."

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

We stepped off the train, onto Platform 9 and ¾ and looked fervently around for James’s family. ‘Black hair, tall, with brown eyes, all of them’ James had told me, but amid all the confusion and people, it was hard to tell left from right.

            We needn’t have worried, because suddenly a tall, handsome man fitting James’s description to a tee came running at us, laughing his head off, a wife and small child in tow. "James!" the woman shouted merrily, above all the din, and suddenly she had swept us both up into her arms. Awkwardly, I hugged back, and saw James had already escaped from her grasp and had run over to his dad. "Hello, my dear! You must be Lily Evans, right?" Mrs. Potter gushed, holding me back a little to look me over.

            "Err—yes, yes, I am," I smiled, rather rattled.

            "My, Lily, you have a gorgeous figure… you’ll just have to let me take some measurements, won’t you? Oh, my, and those eyes! You have such beautiful _eyes_ , my dear! Emerald robes would look delicious on you! Yes, yes, I can see it now—"

            "Hullo, Lily, old girl," Mr. Potter was warmly shaking my hand, beaming down at me and showing off his pearly white teeth. James was laughing, standing beside his father. They looked like identical twins. A small girl was tugging on the hem of James’s robes, even though she could have easily tapped him on the shoulder, should she have stood on her tippy-toes.

            "Love Jay," she grinned.

            James laughed and said, "Love Lissliss."

            The little girl turned around and smiled at me, and I immediately saw that she was indeed Melissa. Her eyes were not like James’s; nor were his parents’. Hers were a dark brown, nearly black, with delicate little eyelashes framing them. She had thin, perfect eyebrows and milky white skin to rival mine. "Hi," she blushed at me, half-way hiding behind James.

            "Hello," I smiled.

"Well, best get a move on, then," Mr. Potter said cheerily, and with that he grabbed onto all of us, and we were Apparating to James’s house.

& & & & & & & & & & & &

We appeared in a fashionably decorated living room, comfortably furnished, but which allowed a taste of elegance to be bestowed upon the eye. Mrs. Potter was surely no amateur when it came to house decorum, and seemed, by the looks of it, to adore it as much as James had said she loved clothing design. I was surprised at first, for pleasantly humming in the background was that old Muggle Christmas song, Rocking Around The Christmas Tree by Amy Grant. Her luscious voice belted out "and deck the halls with boughs of holly" just as we entered, and indeed, the room was adorned with just such accentuations. At first glance, nothing would seem quite out of the ordinary, but upon further examination, I found the entire house to be bustling with magical activity.

            Icicles that served as suspended chandeliers were bewitched to dance with each other in time to the music, blankets sprawled themselves out in spectacular red and green arrays on every couch, and every thread of carpet was blinking invitingly up at me. The windows playfully drew designs on themselves with the glittering frost, and several holly scented candles immediately zoomed toward us from across the room.

            I deciphered the warm smell of something baking via the kitchen, and was delighted to see a large clock on the mantelpiece which read twenty-five minutes till ‘Supper Time’. Silver bells clanged together and Mrs. Potter adoringly waved her wand so that they tinkled in time to her music.

            "Mum’s showing off for you," James breathed in my ear, and his warmth penetrated my chilled skin. "She’s never done this much before. Gone all out this year. Ah, and do I detect cookies baking? I should’ve brought a girl home years ago."

            I couldn’t help but giggle and he raised his eyebrows amusedly at me. Mr. Potter was arguing good-naturedly with his wife about her silly choice of music--"Really Georgia, I’m sure the girl’s heard this a thousand times before…", and Mrs. Potter was arguing back fervently--"Oh but Henry, it’s a Muggle classic! Silly man!" She turned toward me and nodded her head solemnly.

            "Yes, yes, a size three I’d say; very thin, no meat on those bones, but beautifully so! Ah, I can’t wait to get my tape measure out and--oh, doesn’t anyone smell that? It smells like something’s done. I better go pull my cookies out of the oven, then, before they burn…" She reluctantly pulled her eyes off of my ‘ideal figure’, and glanced forlornly toward the kitchen. "James, dear, show your friend where she’ll be staying now. There’ll be plenty of time to talk, (and maybe measure…) later, but let her put her things away before dinner at least. You too, you silly boy, up to your room you go!"

            Mr. Potter was absently tapping the silver bells with his wand, and jumped back a few feet when they turned into hummingbirds.

            "Really, Henry!" Mrs. Potter said as she entered her kitchen, and with a wave of her hand they were tinkling happily away again, still perfectly in time to the music. Amy Grant’s voice poured into the room as the song reached its climax, and Mr. Potter shook his head in disbelief.

            "Holidays," he said to himself, as if that were enough to explain his clumsy wandwork. James smiled to himself and took Melissa’s little hand in his big one.

            "Good to be home, eh, kid?" he said to her, nodding toward their father.

            Melissa nodded back, all smiles, and shyly looked up at me. "Are you James’s girlfriend?" she asked.

            I blinked, and James threw his head back in bemused laughter. "Hardly," he said, quirking a brow at me. I smiled, embarrassed, and for a moment we watched each other.

            "Well, what are you, then?" Melissa persisted, becoming a bit bolder now.

            "I’m your brother’s friend," I said delicately, shifting my bags a little.

            "Yes, but you’re a girl, and a friend, so that means you’re his girl friend, right?"

            "I guess you could say that," I shrugged, and James smirked at me.

            I looked away, feeling the heat rise to my cheeks. I hadn’t realized how awkward it would be, to stay with the Potters for two whole weeks, all alone. Certainly Arabella had been right to raise an eyebrow or two when I’d told her. James had been more than generous in his offer, and somehow I doubted that it had been right for me to accept it.

            "Hey, Melissa," James said, "how about helping Mum with her cookies?"

            "Okay," the girl beamed, "but you have to tell me all about Hogwarts later, alright? I want to hear all about Remus."

            "What about Sirius then? I thought Sirius was your special friend?" James knelt down gingerly beside her, amusedly watching her giggle behind her hair. I coughed into my fist, choking back a laughing fit. Sirius Black, boner boy, was hardly my idea of a ten-year-old’s ‘special friend’.

            James turned his head and grinned at me. I shook my head, and he turned back to his sister.

            "Oh, Sirius is handsome," she told him, nodding her head, "but Remus is dreamy. I’ve decided that I like him better now."

            "Aw," James said, playfully squeezing her shoulder, "since when?"

            "Since last summer," Melissa answered confidently. "Mum thinks he’s dreamy too; just ask her!"

            James laughed and ruffled her hair. "Off you go," he said, and when she ran off, remembering at the last second to wave bye to me, he stood up. "Ready to see your room?"

            "Sure," I smiled, and he showed me to the hallway. Right as we left the room James grabbed my elbow and laughed. "What?" I said, rather bewildered. He pointed up. Mistletoe.

            "Tradition, you know," his eyes sparkled, and before I knew what was happening, he’d clumsily kissed the top of my head. I blushed scarlet, but he didn’t seem to pay any attention. Instead, he quickly moved on, with his confident step, and I had to jog a bit to keep up with him. So he had kissed me. Just not exactly where I had wanted--or expected--him to. My mind kept replaying his lips upon my hair, and I was quite giddy after three flashbacks.

            James led me down his hallway, brightly decorated with dancing tinsel and twirling holly. We came to a grand staircase after passing numerous rooms, all of the same fashion as the living room, and he motioned for me to follow him up.

            Silently, we went up two whole floors before he stopped at a door, obviously decorated for my enjoyment with fresh white lilies, magically charmed to stay ever-fresh. He pulled it open for me and smiled. "Here you go. Mum really did out-do herself. You should come home with me every Christmas, Lily," he grinned, and shook his head. I stepped in, set down my bags gingerly, and he waved. "I’ll come get you in fifteen minutes, okay?"

            "But James—what should I—" he shut the door and walked off cheerily—"wear?" I finished softly, looking down at my bags. Shrugging to myself, I pulled my drab black robes up over my head and folded them neatly on the bed.

            With a wave of my wand, I was unpacked, my clothes and belongings flying out from my suitcases and into the drawers so nicely provided for me. I walked over to the bureau and looked through the six drawers. Top one: underwear, socks, gloves, stalkings…, second: the Hogwarts robe I’d been wearing upon arrival and my gifts for people, third: some Muggle clothing I’d brought, just in case, fourth: my broom, jewelry, and money, fifth:  regular robes, and sixth: some dress robes I’d had made for me in Hogsmeade once, years ago.

            I first made my owl, Zeke, comfortable, and then returned to the sixth drawer, deciding on the robe to wear for dinner. It was sleeveless, of gauzy material and a pale green hue, with a sweet bow in the back. It looked more like a dress than anything. That was why I liked it. I laid it on the (to my shock) king-sized bed, and made my way to the adjoining bathroom. White marble counter tops and tile met my eyes with huge mirrors everywhere and the same precious white lilies magically dusting their way over everything. A bath was already drawn for me, full of colorful bubbles and an inviting cinnamon scent. I hadn’t wanted a bath, but I didn’t feel like dirtying the huge shower to the left either, so settled for luxury.

            As I slipped in, I at once recognized a magic touch to the water. It glittered with golden sparkles, and at once made my body feel like velvet. I’d never felt so clean in my life. I got out reluctantly, only for the sake of time, and promised myself another bath after dinner.

            Standing naked in front of the mirrors, a fluffy white towel flew at me and wrapped itself around my fragile little body. I dried myself off, spritzed my body with a little scent, and then took to using magic. I put on my bra and underwear and my choice of clothing for the evening, but then I picked up my wand and let the real fun begin.

            With a wave, my hair was curled perfectly at the ends, loose and lovely down my back, only tied together slightly with a light green bow to match my robes. Another wave and I had the perfect make up on. Sometimes, I _loved_ magic.

            James knocked on my door just as I was slipping on some matching shoes. And as he took my arm, in a would-be chivalrous fashion, smiling approvingly down at my robes, I realized with a funny little jolt that life was indeed meant to be good.

& & & & & & & & & & & & &

** Author’s Note: ** Er… Don’t ask where I got the Amy Winehouse track from. It just weirdly fits when you read this chapter in a certain mood. Better update soon!


	8. Holiday From Real

** Deconstruct, a Memoir **

By Solarism

_ Chapter Seven – Holiday From Real _

{This chapter’s song is “Jet Ski Accidents” by The Blow.}

 

 

We sat down to dinner formally, but I didn’t feel out of place at all. Mr. Potter sat at the head of the table, Mrs. Potter near him, James and Melissa on either side, and I was given the seat of honor. "Let’s say grace before we begin, shall we?" Mr. Potter asked, cocking his head slightly to one side--a trait James also carried. At once my stomach dropped. I was not a Christian. I never said grace. The only praying I’d heard during my lifetime were those of my mother’s… pleas for her God almighty to end her miserable life there and then, usually.

            Melissa raised her hand brightly, practically bouncing on her toes to be called on. James rolled his eyes to me good-naturedly and I gave him a confused smile in return. Their father obliged his daughter with a chuckle, and nodded for her to go ahead and say her peace. With a coo of sheer excitement, the little girl drew out her wand and whispered a spell I couldn’t even comprehend. A flash of light filled the dining room, which took me completely by surprise. Then glittery golden words began to swirl about all of our heads. In a minute the atoms formed into something solid, and the light disappeared altogether.

            Unexpectedly, the now very heavy floating words (which said ‘grace’) plummeted into all of our laps. "Grace and good fortune to all," Melissa said with a grin. Mr. and Mrs. Potter congratulated her on the array, as did James. I nodded politely, bewildered yet relieved, and fingered the word in my lap. _Grace_. "Anyway," Melissa continued, "let’s eat because I’m--"

            Just then an ear-splitting crash sounded from some other room in the house, along with the sound of shattering glass. Apparently this was not an ordinary occurrence even in the Potter household by the look on Mrs. Georgia Potter’s face. 

"Remus, honestly!" came a voice, "I told you the roof, not the patio! Look at this mess. Here, let me fix it--"

            "It was your fault, Sirius, really. You shouldn’t have jerked the broom from my grasp. You _know_ how I hate backseat drivers. And now look what you’ve gone and done, wrecked James’s mum’s window… I told you I could manage on my own, and I was certainly not going to land on the roof, that’s just absurd…"

            "But Remus, the point of the matter is not who actually _crashed_ the broom… just that you were driving it… and oh dear, is this couch Victorian? OW!"

            Both Melissa and her mother burst into hysteric giggles and James, grinning, jumped up from his chair. Mr. Potter eyed the kitchen door warily, but remained silent. I just kind of sat there. Sirius Black bounced into the dining room with a sheepish looking Remus Lupin trailing right behind him. "Hey folks," Sirius chimed merrily, bowing to Mrs. Potter and Melissa and nodding respectfully to James’s father, "just in time for dinner, I see. What’re we having?"

            James laughed and high-fived his best friend with a look of sheer glee.

            "Err, hello, Mr. and Mrs. Potter… so sorry to intrude like this. Sirius and I… we seem to have broken your really expensive window and maybe that really, really, _really_ expensive Victorian couch as well, but, ahhhh, we fixed them both? Please give us food? We are poor, starving little boys who just happen to be in league with your son?" Remus grimaced, looking rather befuddled, and Melissa’s eyes bulged.

            Mrs. Potter smiled softly and gestured for them to pull up some chairs. Remus moved to drag two over while Sirius surmised the table. I saw him mentally register all the delicious looking food… and then, finally, me. "HOLY CRA—nberries!" he said oh so delicately, his eyes darting to Melissa, and tilted his highly attractive head to one side. "What’s she doing here, Jamesie?"

            "Jamesie?" I repeated dully, trying not to smirk.

            "Jamesie," Remus nodded to me, dragging the chairs up. 

            Sirius slapped his hands together, nodded and grinned at me, and said, "No matter, no matter at all. You don’t mind if I help myself, right Mrs. P? Jamesie, pass those peas. No. On second thought, the chicken, too. And the ham. And that bowl of potatoes. Actually, the rolls, yes, them too… and the--"

            "Nice to see you, Lily," Remus smiled at me and held out a slim, pale hand. I blinked, grasped it, and immediately felt something sticky clinging my palm.

            "Oh!" I shouted, and flung his hand off of mine.

            "The carrots, yes, the carrots… Oh and mustn’t forget the apples. Do you have butter? Yes, I thought I saw some butter…"

            Remus and James exploded in laughter as I tried to shake a big gob of gum out of my hand. Mr. Potter sighed to himself audibly and began to cut his meat.

            "Yes, yes, a good prank Remus, well done--is that cheesecake I spy? You wouldn’t deprive me of the croissants either, would you? Ooh, and there’s wine!" Sirius reached across the table, eyes as wide as I’d ever seen.

            Unfortunately, at that moment, I spluttered and managed to dislodge the gum off into the air. It somehow, some way, managed to find itself into Sirius’s open mouth just as he clasped his long, pale fingers around the nearest bottle of chardonnay. 

There was a momentary pause. James and Remus stopped laughing, Melissa looked away from Remus’ face, Mrs. Potter froze in the middle of taking back the peas, and Mr. Potter ceased slicing his ham,

Sirius then proceeded to choke and fall off of his chair. James and Remus whooted and slapped high fives. I just simply stared.

            _Welcome to the real world, Lily_ , I thought vaguely to myself.

            Without ceremony and without checking to make sure Sirius was okay, I stabbed a fork through into my salad, and began to eat in humiliated silence.

            "Are you going to eat that crouton, Lily?” came Sirius’ voice, alarmingly near my ear. I jumped, but he had already recovered and was reaching over the table to snatch it up before I could protest. "Thanks,” he said and popped it into his mouth with an extremely devilish grin.

            …It was going to be a _long_ Christmas vacation.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & &

A little while later I found myself sitting out in the backyard on a smooth, creaky wooden swing. The boys had gone home to my relief, and James was taking his nightly shower. There wasn’t much for me to do except sit outside in the Potter’s backyard and enjoy the night. Stars glittered through the holes in the trellis overhead, and the crescent moon smiled silently down on me. The bloom of jasmine was thick in the air.

            On the trellis there was an overgrown grapevine, wild with luscious looking fruit. Daisies and buttercups grew underfoot in the dewy grass and a cobblestone walkway accented the grounds. It was an ethereal paradise out there, really, for everywhere you looked there was a new and unusual delight for the eye to take in. Rose bushes, although not in season, bloomed everywhere. Feral tiger lilies, my namesakes, grew around a manmade pond, and frogs and crickets played their melodious music as soft as an elevator tune in the background.

            I suppose it was all kept up by magic, but in every appearance besides the frosty air, the backyard looked like a midsummer night’s dream. Apple trees sprouted out of the ground and their soft pink blossoms spilled out into the iridescent night. The smell surrounded me; it was of spring and summer and everything that is right in the world. Sighing contentedly, I wrapped my shawl (loaned to me by Mrs. Potter) around my shoulders and settled back into the swing.

            I looked down, admiring my pretty dress… it looked so nice on me, especially tonight… and with a start I realized that I had left my bruised and semi-scarred up arms bare all the night long. Had anyone noticed? I drew the shawl even closer around my thin frame and gave an involuntary shiver. I must learn to be more careful. Looking down at one of the blacker bruises, my thoughts drifted to Lucius.

            What would he be doing, all alone in Malfoy Mansion tonight? I knew his parents and they were never at home. He would have that huge house, two times the size of the Potter’s and ten times as cold, all to himself. I wondered for a moment if he got lonely, ever, on nights like these when all he had were memories of school and a few miscellaneous house elves to keep him company. And then I thought of my Christmas gift to him, to be sent in two days’ time… a leather writing case. A journal, you know, with golden-leafed pages and a golden quill with a fancy ink holder to accompany it. Would he like it? Would it be… satisfactory?

            What was I to him, anyway? Not his girlfriend, no; I knew all too well he certainly had other girls in other places at other times. I was no one special. I shut my eyes and just thought.

            A short time later I felt a warm hand brush against my shoulder. I shook my head with a jump and stared up into James’s dizzy eyes. _James Potter has dizzy eyes, rush, can you feel it? Rush, spin, dance, jump, magic, they twist, turn, move. They’re golden, now green, now brown, now purple. They change, dizzy eyes, dizzy, dizzy, dizzy. Can you feel the rush? Because everything’s so dizzy, all dizzy, rush…_

            "Oh, hi," I blinked, looking furtively down into my lap. He collapsed onto the other side of the swing, although to my disappointment, well away from me.

            "Why don’t you ever look me in the eye, Lily?" he asked, his gaze burning into the side of my head. I glanced at him quickly, smiled clumsily, and looked away again.

            "I look you in the eye all the time."

            "No, you don’t."

            "Yes," I said, "I do. See? Me. Eyes. Looking."

            "No you don’t. You--see! You just did it again. You look at me, stare, and then avoid eye contact altogether. Is something wrong? I mean I know I’m attractive, but Merlin, this is excessive…" he laughed an easygoing laugh that sent chills down my spine. I pinched my eyes shut and sighed. "Lily? Lily, what is it?"

            "I just… I have a headache."

            "Oh, God, I’m a moron. Of course you have a headache. I know this is a lot to take in and everything and Sirius and Remus really shouldn’t have dropped by--"

            "No, it’s not that. I’m good, I swear." I looked him in the eye to prove my point.

            "Really?"

            "Yeah, really."

            "Well, okay…"

            "Okay."

            A pause, and then, "So tell the truth. Is Lucius your boyfriend or what?"

"Ha! No. He’s not.  Or at least I’m not his girlfriend, anyway, if there’s any difference. He doesn’t give a crap to begin with. No skin off my back. Just some guy I make out with and send Christmas presents to and wonder about while in the midst of this awesome backyard."

            "Ah, I see… I wonder, what’s exactly so special about him? There must be something, because something must sure be extraordinary if he’s got you so captivated."

            "He hasn’t got me ‘captivated’," I said with a bit of disdain.

            "Sure he has."

            "How am I captivated?"

            "I’d tell you, but…"

            "But?"

            "But then I’d have to kill you."

            "James Potter, Lucius has not got me captivated. That’s stupid."

            "Ah, but you see, he has."

            "Tell me how."

            "If you have to ask…"

            I laughed, and flicked his arm. He grinned, dived at me, and flicked my neck. "Oh no you did not just do that," I said, reaching over to flick his chest. He caught my wrist and twisted my hand back slightly.

            "Oh yes I just did, girlfriend!" he said, snapping his fingers in my face. I burst out laughing and leaned forward to bury my face in what turned out to be his knee. He bombarded the back of my head with flicks as I did this, and I tried to slap him off, but alas, it was a losing battle. I was too taken with the giggles to do any fighting of value. He was cracking up too, but James always did have more mastery over the art of war than I did. I finally sat up, sighed with content, and locked eyes with him.

            "Tell me, what makes Lily’s world go round?" he asked me, folding his arms around himself to block out the chill.

            "What do you want to know?"

            "Anything you want to tell me."

            I thought for a moment, staring up at the stars. "How many of those can you name?"

            "Of what?"

            "The stars."

            "The stars? None…"

            "I can. I can name the constellations. I can name the stars. Polaris, Sirius--the dog star…, there’s Venus, shining brightly down on us as ever… Oh, and the Milky Way. The Milky Way galaxy-- ours. The Big Dipper, the Little Dipper… you can’t see Lyra, but that’s my favorite of all the constellations and stars put together. It’s breathtaking."

            "Why do you like the stars?"

            "Because they’re free."

            He smiled a clumsy smile. "And we’re slaves?"

            "No; we are merely the ignorant slave drivers, bringing hate and discord to the lovely world. Don’t the Christians say we were all cast out of paradise for trusting a serpent? For trusting! Rather ironic, don’t you think? No wonder there’s so much chaos."

            "Not everyone is that bad."

            "I’ve never known anyone to be better."

            "What about the Aurors? You said you wanted to be one once. Do you still?"

            "Yes, of course I do. I guess they’re not so bad. But every system on this damned earth is corrupt. There’ve been Aurors that have gone bad over the years. Gone insane. The Ministry has fools working for them now, besides Moody of course; he’s brilliant… and I wonder, if anything ever comes of this Voldemort nonsense… how many of them will cross over? What will happen to the world then?"

            He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. We were silent awhile, and then, "So… what’s your guilty pleasure?"

            I grinned. "Angry girl music."

            "Beg your pardon?"

            "Angry. Girl. Music. You know, like… Celestra Spellbound and The Warlocks. I love to put it on sometimes when I’m alone and pretend like I’m on air guitar, headbanging right along with the music."

            He smirked and shook his head. "I don’t understand you."

            "And I don’t understand you," I retorted.

            "What don’t you understand?"

            "You have a reputation. You’re cool, athletic, and if the stories I’ve heard are right, a right pompous arse. What are you doing hanging around with me?"

            James laughed. "Pompous arse, huh?"

            "Verbatim."

            "Shit, I’m not that bad. But if we’re going to start in on the whole reputation deal, let’s take the spotlight off me and onto you. You’re the baddest girl ever to hit Hogwarts. You gamble, you get pretty hot with a certain Slytherin, and you don’t seem to care what anyone thinks of you. You’re one of the elite."

            "Elite?! If I’m one of the elite, you’re a god. Quidditch team all star, wicked brainiac, the new James Dean extraordinaire."

            "Glad you think I’m so suave, Lily."

            "Well, you are." _Oh my God, did I just say that?_

            "And another thing, if I’m a pompous arse, then you’re a frigid bitch."

            "Frigid _bitch_?"

            "Verbatim."

            "From _who_?"

            "Well, Peter. But nevermind."

            "I don’t know what that kid has against me."

            "Neither do I. But he’s a right decent sort if you get to know him. Not the brightest guy in world maybe, but he’s funny. Not very popular with the ladies either… and Sirius doesn’t like him much, but otherwise he’s awesome. He’s around when Sirius is flirting up some chick and when Remus is visiting his grandmother."

            "Remus. Is he okay? He always seems so sick," I asked, with a tilt of my head. Something passed over James’s eyes, but he blinked and it was gone.

            "Nah, he’s cool. So is Sirius actually. He’s my best friend."

            "He’s very attractive. More than you, almost, Mr. Quidditch Master Extraordinaire."

            "I didn’t need to hear that."

            "Hey, sometimes the truth hurts," I smiled and stood up, stretching. "I’m getting cold. Can we go inside?"

            "Only if you tell me what the whole gambling thing is about, in detail."

            "Deal," I said with a flick of my hair.

            "Good," he said and smiled at me. I smiled back, and we went inside. The door clicked shut behind us, and so did most of his inquisitive mood with it. The night was old, and we were done.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & 

Christmas Eve came and I sent my presents to my friends by owl mail, as did the Potter’s. In return, owls were flying back and forth all night, having to be constantly watered and fed for their return trips. Some came from as far away as Majorca, wherever that was, for Mrs. Potter. We piled them up in a clumsy array under their spectacularly decorated tree. Partridges now nestled in the branches, singing out graceful songs of blissful misery. Whenever Mr. Potter got annoyed with them, he’d wave his wand much with an odd look on his face and their volume seemed to go down a notch.

            Once, he set the tree on fire, and that caused a lot of sighs and wand waving. Mr. Potter hopped back and dropped his wand, shocked as he was to have put fire to something for the eighty-nine billionth year in a row. James poked my back and laughed into my ear, "I told you it wouldn’t be Christmas without him setting fire to something…" Mrs. Potter put it out but could not repair the rather scorched look a half of it had acquired; nor could she rejuvenate the now featherless and croaking partridges that glared angrily up at us. All in all, it was a quite amusing night.

            I had already become rather fond of the Potter’s, Melissa in particular. I could see why James loved her so much. She was sweet and innocent with a shy disposition about her, and she had taken to me immediately. Now she lay asleep in my lap before the fire, her little warm head resting gently against my shoulder. James sat in the armchair next to me, rattling presents and speculating on what they might be. Mr. and Mrs. Potter, who were slow-dancing to music only heard to lovers, occasionally shook their heads at him and smiled secretively. Annoyed, he ran a hand through his unruly hair and sighed boredly at me.

            I shrugged and pointed to the sleeping Melissa on my lap. James drummed his fingers on his armrest and looked pointedly at the clock, which read ‘Melissa’s Bed Time’. "Mum," he moaned as his mother and father danced dreamily by, "can you not put your child to bed on time? Look, she’s passed out."

            "Hmm? Oh, dear, you and Lily can put her to bed if you like…"

            "I don’t like," James said contrarily, but picked the little girl up from my lap and began to carry her off nonetheless. I followed him, weaving my way through several nicely decorated rooms, similar to the den we had formerly been in. He tenderly tucked her beneath her covers and put on a nightlight for her. "She gets scared sometimes…" he explained, sitting down in a chair near her bed. He motioned for me to come and sit. I acquiesced.

            "Hi," I said after a moment of silence, smiling at him.

            "Hey," he said, sprawling himself out in his characteristic way over the chair. I leaned back on the bed and kicked off my shoes. We sat like that for a moment, watching Melissa sleep. "I’m glad you came, Lily," he said, breaking the silence.

            "I’m glad I came, too," I replied.

            "You have no idea how refreshing it is to have a girl to talk to. Remus and Sirius and Pete are my best friends and all, and we get along great; don’t get me wrong. I like talking to you differently, though. You listen. You get things."

            "Hmm," I said, with a tilt of my head.

            "It’s cool we’re friends is what I’m trying to say. And you’re the only girl I know who would actually come to my house just to hang out. It’s pretty awesome you’re that comfortable with me. Thanks. I mean it, Lil. Thanks."

            "You’re welcome," I said, frowning with understanding. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and rolled his eyes.

            "Maybe the lovebirds have stopped waltzing now. Wanna go see? Maybe they’ll let us open a present or two tonight if we beg enough. They usually let me, and Melissa too if she can stay awake. More fool her for falling asleep tonight, poor kid."

            "Okay," I said. He walked with me at a slow pace, close by my side, back to the den. I could feel the body warmth pulsating off of him we were so close. Occasionally our fingertips would brush. I glanced at him but he seemed not to notice at all. He seemed to positively radiate a wonderful aura; something that screamed ‘I’m original, I’m real, I’m me’. I envied James Potter more than anyone else in the world that year, and this was why. He was everything I wanted to be as a person and so much more. He was probably a thousand times more intelligent than me, a fabulously powerful wizard for sure, incredibly toned and athletic, care-free, silly, popular…

            He was staring at me.

            "Oh," I said with a start, "what?"

            "You’ve got something on the side of your head. A piece of the gum from earlier I think."

            "Ugh, where?" I asked, rather mortified.

            "On your eyebrow."

            I scraped at my face, but could find nothing. "Where?"

            "Here," he said, moving closer, "let me get it." He was going to touch my face. James Potter was going to touch my face- "It’s right… here." His fingers were on my eyebrow, gently plucking off something that was sticking to my skin. I looked up into his eyes and began to drown. For a moment he looked back at me, surprised, and within that brief eternity we were lovers from a past life, best friends, and guardian angels. He was my rock.

            "Jaaames, Lillly, is that you?" called Mrs. Georgia Potter in a singsong voice.

            James grinned at me, shook his head, and removed his fingers, flicking the gum off into the air. "Yeah, it’s us." We walked through another room, and James leaned casually against the doorway, watching his parents continue to dance. "Do you mind if Lily and I exchange presents tonight?" _He’d gotten me something…?_ "We’ll stay out of your way," he said teasingly, with a glimmer of playfulness in his dizzy eyes.

            "Whatever you want, James," Mr. Potter said over Mrs. Potter’s shoulder, and he spun her around in a loving twirl.

            "Great! Thanks," James said, and grabbing my arm, led me off to his room. His touch was gentle, tentative; like a delicate probe more than a demanding force. Lucius always held me harder, tighter, and more boldly. Lustfully. James directed me as he would any other person. To him, I was just a girl that happened to be a friend. His girl friend.

            He nodded to a chair against his wall, and I gratefully sunk down into it, hugging myself and waiting curiously. Rifling through a drawer, he pulled out a rather shabby looking package, wrapped in brown butcher paper and tied together with string. I smiled in spite of my apprehension. "Here," he said, "I know it looks like crap but I’m just really bad at wrapping things. Even ask my parents. Anyway, open it." Dropping it into my lap, he sat on his bed, grinning like an idiot.

            I undid the string, and the paper fell back to reveal two books. "They’re on Aurors," James explained quickly, barely containing his apparent excitement. "I figured since we both want to be one, we should start learning now. There’s so much work to be started, and so soon. We both better try out for Prefect, you know, because there are more opportunities for Prefects to get to be Aurors. And there are so many--"

            Within a second I had stood up and thrown my arms around his neck.

            "Oh…" he said, stiffly sitting there a moment before putting his arms awkwardly around my back.

            "Thank you," I said, squeezing a bit tighter and then letting go.

            "Yeah," he said, shrugging and blinking at me, rather bewildered.

            "I have something for you too," I said, "hang on. Stay here." Running off to my room and back to his, I savored the memory of his arms around me, hugging me back. _James Potter’s whole_ being _is dizzy_. "Here," I said, handing him a carefully chosen present wrapped in gold.

            He tore off the paper as is characteristic of boys, and grinned happily up at me. "Great minds think alike," he quoted, looking down at his similar copies of the same text. "Thank you. I mean it. Thanks, Lily, a lot."

            "No problem," I smiled, and we just sat there a minute, looking at our books and at each other. And from that moment on, I knew that I would do anything to keep on knowing him; I would do anything he asked at all, just to be his friend. James Potter had me entranced, and I liked it like that.

& & & & & & & & & & 

            Christmas Day arrived and I was tired. The entire night before I hadn’t slept. Every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was James. All I could feel was the hug and all I could think about were the books.

            The day was a blur. We opened our presents. Mr. and Mrs. Potter gave me three exquisite new dress robes, all custom fit to flatter my body in every way possible. Melissa shyly gave me an everlasting pink rose. Shockingly, Sirius and Remus had sent something my way too. A box of magical gum. Ha, ha. Arabella had sent a silver bracelet and a bewitched stationary set. Practical, as ever.  In her package she had included a gift to me from Lucius: a picture of himself. I later chucked it in the bottom of my trunk and didn’t even remember it for months after the fact. My mother and sister had, not surprisingly, sent me nothing.

            Looking back, I don’t really remember the content of that day. There was spectacular food, jokes, family stories and happiness abound. I had a good time. But nothing stood out more than the night before had, and that was the one memory I have kept with me, even after all these years. James’s touch and how we’d gotten each other the same thing for Christmas. How he had hugged back.

            As we boarded the Hogwarts Express on the 27th to return to school, James helped me with my bags. I thanked the Potters and hugged them each in turn. I stepped on the train with James at my heel, and we walked to the nearest compartment.

            And as it shut behind us, as we sat down across from each other, I could feel the bliss of life surrounding me and opening my eyes to what happiness was. Truly content, I shut my eyes and succumbed to adolescence.

            Swish, click.

            The door shut upon the happiness of the holidays and, although I didn’t know it then, also upon the last shred of naïveté I possessed in my youth.

& & & & & & & & & & &

** Author’s Note: ** Well, it’s getting better, isn’t it? The writing seems to improve in small increments, but the story is finally beginning to be established. Although I don’t know why I keep placing so much emphasis on the chapter songs, I must mention that I particularly love this one, Jet Ski Accidents by the Blow, in accompaniment with the scene of James and Lily in the garden. Go figure. More updates soon!

 


	9. A Beautiful Mind

**Deconstruct, a Memoir**

By Solarism

_Chapter Eight --_ _A Beautiful Mind_

{This chapter’s song is “Motorcycle Drive By” by Third Eye Blind.}

 

 

Coming back to Hogwarts that year from James’s house changed a lot of things for me. I was only fourteen-years-old that year and the world I was thrust into was not at all what the fates had intended for someone so young. For all my dirty, behind-the-scenes deeds, I was still just a scared little girl at heart, trying to figure out what to do with my life. Despite my blatant disregard for authority, it is important for one to remember while reading this transcript that I had a virtuous compassion for good and light. My entire character was shaped around the ultimate goal of complete righteousness, and not even my gambling nights could affect that in the long run.

            As teenagers I think we all do things that are rather uncharacteristic of our true selves. Give or take, to this day I justify my actions with the thought that I could have done quite a lot worse. I could have been more promiscuous with Lucius; I could have drunk myself into a nightly stupor… I could have succumbed to the Dark Arts and used my intelligence for evil. But I did not, even when under the most acute mental pressure to do so, because I had a dream of becoming an Auror and securing the world for all those to come after me. Within myself I carried the seed of nobility, a quality I thank Heaven developed in me at a very young age.

            Because of my compassion and quiet kindness, the brutality that emerged within the wizarding world that year shocked me utterly. Upon our arrival at the school it became utterly apparent that something had gone terribly wrong while we had been away. Arabella and Narcissa and I had shyly shared a compartment with James and his friends since we had not been able to find Lucius or any of the other Slytherins anywhere on the train, and while we remained there, the entire world seemed right. During the return journey Arabella condescended to flirt a bit with Sirius and passed notes with me so we could explain our vacations to each other.

            I loved her for flirting with Sirius; it was odd. I loved her for not being spoken for, as I was with Lucius. I loved that she had the freedom to bat her eyelashes at whomever she chose to. I loved her for the way she wrote back in her fancy handwriting, asking me delicate questions filled with maturity and the utmost understanding. I loved the way she wasn’t drunk. I had missed her a lot.

            The one thing I remember most about stepping off the train was holding her hand, as was our general habit to do. I remember standing there in the morning sunlight, staring up into the grave face of Professor McGonagall, hearing the words that would change my life from that day forward. I remember watching our teacher’s lips quiver with tragedy as she told us about the murders. How she told us that six wizarding families had been slaughtered while we had been on the train, coming back to school. How she told us that the upstart Voldemort had sent his henchmen to use forbidden curses on the families, right down to the very last infant sleeping in its cradle. I remember the horror that passed over every single person’s face. I remember clutching onto Arabella’s hand like nothing else existed. Suddenly the war between good and bad had begun and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Part of me will linger in that moment forever, because that was when I passed out of childhood and into the ferocity that is womanhood. That was the moment that I remember after all these years, because it was the moment the world came unhinged.

 

& & & & & & & & & & & & &

 

            Pointless. The murders had been positively pointless. Grief pamphlets had circulated around the castle from some unknown origin, and now I sat staring up at one of them in my dorm room, my head in Arabella’s lap. She was reading it angrily, muttering to herself almost incoherently about grief and exactly what grief could go and do to itself. My eyes were grazing over the backside of it, where a glittering golden memoriam rattled off the names of those deceased. Twenty-eight people total; six bloodlines. Most of the surnames I did not recognize, but one or two of the families looked vaguely familiar. Arabella knew one of the girls whose parents and sisters had been killed, and she was positively in a fury about this new turn of events.

            WHY? Read the inside of the pamphlet in big bold letters as she flipped it over. In this time of grief [someone sure did like that word…], _we all must realize that the deaths of these people were not anyone’s fault. The wizard Voldemort is being tracked down by the Ministry as you read this, and will surely be brought to justice soon. We cannot yet know why this murderer has done what he has, but in time all will be revealed. Until then, it is important to stay calm and help those students who have lost their loved ones through this grievous time period. And as always, don’t forget to buy lots of QuikSniff Kleenex for all_ _of_ _your grieving needs_ _._

            "What a fucking bunch of tossers," Arabella said, with a disdainful sniff. "We don’t need any freaking grief pamphlets trying to sell us Kleenex, for God’s sake; we need answers and justice right now! Give these stupid things to the kids who lost someone, not to me. ‘Stay calm,’ my ass. How dare they?"

            I sighed, took the pamphlet from her and crumbled it into a ball. Tossing it over my head I wrapped my arms around her stomach and hugged her. Classes had been cancelled all that day to allow us to cope with the tragedy. The Headmaster was off attending to important affairs at the Ministry anyway, and Professor McGonagall and the other teachers had been left in charge, completely oblivious as to what protocol they should be going through with us students. One large group counseling session was being held in our common room downstairs. I wondered if James was down there. I wondered if Lucius was down in his common room, getting therapy from the Prefects like most of our year probably was. I wondered if he even cared…

            Arabella tossed her head and began braiding my hair to occupy herself. We didn’t speak for a while, and I just lay in her lap staring wordlessly up at the ceiling. I was in shock, to tell the truth, and it stung. Although I didn’t really know the families that had been killed, it still amazed me that anyone would want to murder anyone else. And to murder so many people! How could one man hate an infant in a crib enough to slaughter it, too?

            "He’s sick," I said.

            "Hmm?" Arabella said, absently running her hands through my hair. I looked up into her eyes and swallowed hard. She looked half-there.

            "Voldemort. He’s sick."

            "Yeah, I know."

            "No, I mean really. The man is really, really sick. I’m--I’m going to be an Auror, you know..."

            She turned her pretty head down to me and took my chin in her cool fingers. I fought back the tears. "I know," Arabella said quietly, "and you’re going to make a damn good one, too."

            My eyes began to spill over so I shut them, blocking out the world and the confusion and the evil. I grabbed her hand and held on tight to it, forcing the lump in my throat back down. I choked down my sadness. After a moment I ran a hand through my hair. "We’d... we’d better start planning for this Saturday. People are going to want to get drunk out of their minds what with this shit. I better tell Lucius to bring as much as he can get. Rum and martinis, huh?"

            "Bacardi," Arabella said placidly, tucking her legs up under her. "And Scotch. And whatever else he can get his little snaky hand hands on. When things are pathetic even the closet drunks come out and have a rip roaring party. Good for business."

            "Bad for life."

            "That too."

            "We should drape black over the walls, don’t you think? And no overly-happy music."

            "How about pot?"

            "Pot?"

            "You know, marijuana. The smoke cleanses, apparently. Getting high and drunk and totally fucked up might help the kids out a bit. But as soon as they start smoking, I’m out of there. I’ll sit in the hall or something and read a book. Just one more concealment charm."

            "Me too, I guess."

            "Alright," she said, tucking a strand of her lovely black hair behind her ear, "I guess it’s settled."

            "Yes," I said, "I guess it is."

            "Lily?"

            "Yes?"

            "Now what?"

            I shook my head and sat up. "I don’t know. I just don’t anymore."

 

& & & & & & & & & & & &

 

That Saturday, as expected, we had a multitude of people from first through seventh year slipping into our party. The tables were set up, all the charms were in place, and the dice were rolling. Narcissa served drinks on a silver platter. The sweet, sticky smell of marijuana filled the air and clouded out all sense of reality. I looked on, mentally counting up every galleon I earned.

            "Lily," Lucius said loudly in my ear, above the raging music, "I’ve been looking for you..."

            My eyes flicked over to him, and startled, I felt his hand grab mine. For some reason, there was suddenly a pit in my stomach, and for some reason, I really didn’t feel like talking to him either. I wondered why. "Hello, Lucius," I said, forcing my voice into a lazy drawl. "Glad to see you again. How was your Christmas?"

            "A bore without you there, Flower," he said, lifting his chin and wrapping his arms around me. A slight shiver coursed its way through my veins, but this wasn’t one of the good kind that I normally got when Lucius touched me. This one was different, somehow. "I trust you got my gift. A token of my... appreciation."

            "Yes," I said, pulling away a bit, "yes, I did. Thank you."

            "I got yours as well," he said with a slight arch of his perfect eyebrows.

            "Oh? Did you like it..?"

            With a light shrug, he dropped his lips down onto mine and kissed me sweetly. _He’s drunk and he tastes like candy... Mm, candy... drunken candy.. I wonder if James tastes like candy? Candy all the time, mmm... James... James Potter and his dizzy candy eyes..._ Startled, I broke off with a little gasp and met Lucius’s metallic gaze. He stared at me hard, ordering me with his eyes to behave normally. Swallowing, I French-kissed him hard, blocking all thoughts out of my head. I was swimming into nothing and Lucius was my ocean in which to do so, it seemed. Nothing mattered but convincing him--and myself--that I loved him.

            His toned arms skillfully wrapped themselves around my back, searching for my bra clasp. I felt a slight stir of euphoria start at the bottom of my stomach and knew that I had better stop. We were in public, after all. It would be just a bit rash to give myself to him in front of the entire school. Breaking off the kiss and gulping for air, I hugged Lucius to my fragile little body, and felt his whole being sigh with lust. "I’m scared," I whispered into his ear.

            "Of me? That’s stupid. Why?"

            I thought for a moment. _That’s stupid? Being afraid isn’t stupid... I wonder if the people who were murdered were afraid before they died. I wonder if they even knew. I wonder if they screamed?_ "Not of you. Of life. Did you hear about those people? All dead..."

            "Yes, well," he muttered, staring out into the crowd, "big deal."

            I blinked, and let go of him. "What?"

            "Big deal," he shrugged, and motioned a rude hand gesture to someone or other at one of the gambling tables. There came the sound of boys roaring with laughter, and Lucius smirked back at them.

            I blinked again and stepped back. "Oh."

            "What?" he said, focusing on me again and frowning a little. His perfectly etched features seemed so unconcerned with my hurt and confusion. I stared at him for a minute, memorizing every pore on his face. I couldn’t spot any flaws, save a miniscule scar just above his right eyebrow. His lips curved downward with sour disgust, his long-lashed eyes bore into me, and his teeth were clenched in annoyance. I meant... absolutely nothing to him.

            "I have to go," I said, shaking my head.

            "Why?" he frowned harder, looking quite put out. "We were just getting--"

            "To the good part...?" I finished for him so softly he didn’t even hear me over the music. I shook my head again and stepped backwards. With a short wave of my hand, I ran.

            Ran, ran, ran. Ran through the crowd, pushing and shoving and tripping. Ran. People’s faces and bodies blurred past me, drinks sloshed over as I elbowed my way through, and the anger and regret started to well up uncontrollably inside of me. I meant nothing. I ran out the door and slammed it shut behind me; ran out and slid to the floor. Arabella, who had already been out in the corridor, turned around and smiled at me. "Got a bit too wild in there for my tastes," she said, and slid down the wall next to me. I answered with silence.

Taking a long drag off her cigarette, she put one of her slim, scarred-up arms around my shoulder and sighed. "What _have_ we gotten ourselves into?"

"A prozac-induced, monochrome delirious bubble of vileness. That’s what. It’s sick and it’s sad. I hate it. We’ve got nothing good to live for and nothing better to work towards, either. Pointless."

            "Mm," Arabella mused, "maybe. Brushing up on your vocabulary, I see. You’ll do well with the end of the year exams. Better than me, at this rate."

            "Aria."

            "I know."

            "I’m going to go find..."

            "Hm?"

            "I’m going to go find James, I think."

            "Oh. Alright..." she removed her arm from my shoulder and put her cigarette out on the hard floor, stamping the last embers out with her shoe. Rubbing her hands off on each other, she stood up. Hands on her hips, she stared down the hall, as I shakily made it to my feet as well. "Lily," she said, suddenly turning toward me, "I don’t know what you think you’re doing with that guy. But whatever it is, whatever you’re up to, don’t hurt anyone. Especially not Lucius. Especially not yourself."

            I stared at her. "Not hurt Lucius?"

            "Yes. I mean it. Don’t."

            "I mean nothing to him, Arabella," I snapped, "and he means nothing to me. Don’t act like you understand it. Don’t act like you know what I’m doing. I don’t even know what I’m doing."

            "I didn’t mean it like that," she said, but it was quite clear that she had. Pulling on a strand of her hair, she puckered her lips together and quietly leaned back against the wall opposite me. "Just don’t fix something that isn’t broken."

            "I won’t," I said, and turned on my heel. I walked steadily down the hall, a single tear making its way down my cheek. "I won’t," I muttered again, as I entered the Grand Hall. The staircase began there, spiraling up up up into infinity. Placing my foot firmly on the stair and wiping away the teardrop still lingering on my cheek, I began the stairway to Heaven.

 

& & & & & & & & & & & &

 

Sitting at my vanity, I powdered my entire face in one swift plop of my lily-scented powder puff. With a small smile, my fingers flicked over the general beauty products most fourteen-year-old girls have. I had mine color-coded and arranged by particular class of item, and after a moment’s hesitation, my hand rested on a shiny thick gloss. My eyelashes were twirled, my eye make up perfect, my hair neatly brushed and partly clasped in a spelled clip, and now I would also have a plastered-on smile. How fitting.

            It was March now. Springtime, really, at Hogwarts Castle and generally the perfect weather for sexing up young gentlemen. When the air is perfumed with the scent of wildflowers and there is an actual excuse to retreat to the trees’ shady havens, so much happened, so fast. Experience had made me rich since January; experience and studying. After so much sadness and so much confusion, I had buckled down and changed the way I looked at life. My goals were improved, my knowledge far expanded, and I had a clearer idea of what I was going to do with my life.

            "Aurors," I read aloud to myself from the thick book I had laid out on the vanity, "have a tendency to learn the most advanced magic possible. Even the general magic of the Dark Arts, such as necromancy and proscribed charming, are open territory. Because of the typical high death rate that comes with having such a job, it is necessary for Aurors to learn absolutely all they can to aid themselves against the Dark. The Ministry denies any connection to Dark Magic, of course, but in actuality their chief defenders are often Dark Mages of the highest rank. It is important to keep in mind that one usually needs to fight fire with fire, and this is why many believe Aurors must master the Dark Arts, if merely to protect themselves."

            I spritzed my neck with a citrusy smelling liquid, placed three special silver rings on my fingers, and turned the page. While everyone else was busy with the birds and the bees, I was trying to compromise between being an advanced General Magic Mage and being a teenage girl. That particular day I had been invited out with Lucius (who I was beginning to like less and less), Aria, and Narcissa. Instead of complying, I had excused myself from the excursion and explained I still had a lot of studying to do. My friends had just rolled their eyes at my sensible studiousness. None of them, not even Arabella, understood just how important my studies were.

            It was almost unheard of for a witch or a wizard to become a Mage of any kind before they graduated Hogwarts, but I had studied hard for two long months after the first deaths caused by Lord Voldemort, and had passed the first week of March. Now, two weeks later, I was still studying. I secretly had some sort of odd ambition to be a Mage in everything, or something.

            Anyway, now I was reading a book on my chosen profession, and trying to decipher which Mage Identifications to tackle first. Any important defender of the magical world had to at least be a Mage in General Magic, so I had gone for that first. Now I wasn’t particularly sure how to go about things. I had no plan of attack.

            Being a Mage meant so much. After you took a huge, comprehensive exam, a painless form of identification was inserted into your soul. When there was danger nearby that your particular identification, or your Magelet as people referred to it as, was familiar with, it would become something of a sixth sense. You could know when trouble was astir, more easily anticipate your opponent’s next move with Legilimency, smell the use of magic, and heal with a General Magic Magelet. But that wasn’t satisfying enough for me. I had to know more. At least now that I had this Mage mastered, I had a license for practicing higher magic, and so much more had become unlocked to me.

            Stretching a little and picking up my book, I slipped my shoes back on under the vanity and pushed my chair out. Now to find James. I wasn’t so caught up in studying that I forgot about my looks or their impact on boys, and now that I looked beautiful, I was going to find him to study with. When he had seen me become a Mage, he’d taken up studying for one, too. He envied my rings. As an afterthought, I slipped a few other silver bands onto their respective fingers, and with my nose still in the book, I began to wander down to the common room.

            As expected, he was flipping through an equally large volume that I had been reading only a month before, his head tipped into his hand with an intent look in his eye. With a vague smile to myself, I pulled out the chair opposite his, and slid my book down onto the hard oak desk. "We should probably be in the library for this," I commented, eyes never coming up from the text.

            "Probably," he agreed, flipping a page, "but it’s homier in here. A bit quieter, too. Until you decided to join me, that is."

            "Mean," I said, and tucked my legs up onto my chair, settling in. "What part are you on? What chapter?"

            "Four," he said gloomily, "The Importance of Healing and Its Advanced Properties."

            "Ah," I said, "I see." Smiling again to myself, I returned to the land of Aurors.

            It outlined a list of Magelets the average Auror had (General Magic, Elemental Positioning, and Dark Arts), and those that a master Auror had (all the ones an average one did plus Weatherworking and Metamorphosis). I had achieved the easiest one in two months, but that was basically just studying the average material the students in seventh year learned about. Hogwarts did not offer such classes as I would need to master anything else.

            Flipping the page, my mind drifted to why I was working so hard on all of this in the first place. It was as if I had taken it on as my personal mission to drive evil out of the world. It was as if my destiny was falling into place. Acquiring the knowledge that would allow me to pursue this fantasy had become rather an obsession, and in such a short time as well. Six more deaths had occurred within the time frame, and each time I heard the news, and each time a new, ridiculous grief pamphlet was passed out, it fueled my desire to learn, know, and help.

            Nevertheless, I glanced out the window and sighed. It was the one that had the perfect view of the tree Lucius and I had once kissed under. The day James had brought me to Hogsmeade and shown me the Marauder’s Map and the cloak... So much had changed since then.

            "James," I said, slamming my book shut, "we need a study break."

            "No, we don’t."

            "Yes, we _do_."

            "Oh, bother," he sighed, and closed his book, too. "Fine. Where are we going, then?"

            "If you’ll get the you-know-what, we could probably manage you-know-where."

            "Can’t, Sirius is using it."

            "Well, we need to go outside, then."

            "Where?"

            "I don’t know where. Somewhere."

            "Anywhere?"

            "Somewhere."

            "I see. Back to my book, then."

            "No!" I said, grabbing his wrist. His skin felt warm and flushed under mine, smooth and fragile, dry and comforting. With a laugh to play off touching him, I pulled him up and tugged him toward the door. He stopped as we left the common room and slid his fingers into mine. My heart positively leapt into my throat.

            "Hold on tight," he said, "I’m going to try and do something I found in a book while I was studying for the Magelet. Do you trust me?"

            I blinked. Part of me was caught between the knowledge he was less superior than me at magic, and part of me was absolutely sure I was safe with him. After a moment’s hesitation in which he squeezed my hand and stared into my eyes, I nodded. "Yes."

            "Alright, then don’t let go."

            "Okay..."

            He took my other hand and drew me close to him. A wave of pleasant nausea locked my legs rigid, and I noticed my heart begin to race. James Potter was holding me in his arms. Oh my god. In the months that had passed since Christmas vacation, we had certainly been a bit closer, although granted our common interests generally were limited to studying. Everything else we somehow stifled out of our friendship, somehow disregarded. I wasn’t quite sure why, but I still clung to our conversations, and I still appreciated every minute I spent with him. This new position was most decidedly a change.

            With a hum of a deep and complex spell I recognized as a Healing one, his wand began to give off a faintly blue essence. It wrapped up my arms, curling and encircling them, giving off a delightfully cool tingle. He was obviously struggling with the power of the spell, and I saw that it was indeed a hard one to control. I wasn’t aware of particularly what he was doing, but he traced his wand and fingertips up my arms in a slow, sensual motion and I gave an involuntary shudder.

            Watching him intently, the spell suddenly ended. He seemed unaware of his surroundings for a moment before finally focusing on my face and smiling. "Lift up your sleeves," he said, nodding down to my all-covering school robes.

            Uncertainly, I did as he said. Every single scar and ever single bruise that I had ever had was gone. I stared. "Thank you," I said after a moment, physically feeling a weight being lifted off my shoulders. "Thank you so much."

            He shrugged. "Knowing you, I figured you wouldn’t even think to look after yourself. You’re so intent on learning you keep forgetting the little things."

            "I... I know."

            "Come on," he said, letting go of my arms, "let’s go have our break."

            With that, James led me down the hall and towards the springtime, and I realized that things were going to be okay after all. Things had to be. Because I was working toward the light, and I was doing a good job. And so was James.

            And with him, I could do anything.

 

& & & & & & & & & &

 

Author's Note: Yes, Mage stuff is totally AU. Work with it. :p Still, I like this chapter. After editing this one, I paused for a moment and actually smiled. I'm beginning to be glad I started this. See you all with another update soon.   


 


	10. The Rhythm That Divides You

**Deconstruct, a Memoir**

By Solarism

_Chapter Nine – The Rhythm That Divides You_

 {This chapter’s song is “Semi-Charmed Life” by Third Eye Blind.}

 

 

I began to survey James’s progress. He made remarkable time with his studies. He was so quick, in fact, that I almost questioned his ability to remember the material he read. Upon occasion I’d slip a quiz question or two into our conversations. He always answered them flawlessly. It surprised me a bit,I think, to see him doing as well as I had. To see him doing better than I had also came as a shock.

            We studied together and discussed the material late into the night, him drilling me on what I remembered about the Mage test, and me asking for his interpretations of my own text. He was insightful and I was wonderful at recalling specific questions that had been asked, so we got on rather well on the whole. It came about we hung out more together even when we weren’t studying, because we became so accustomed to spending time together. As a result, I got to know his friends better, and avoided any more confrontational passion bursts with Lucius. The enemy was suddenly Severus Snape, whom they mercilessly deemed “Snivellus,” the Marauders were suddenly the good guys, and there was this huge pranking war constantly going on between the two forces. I admit I did get fairly immersed, when all was said and done, with the planning of the pranks myself.

            Sirius Black turned out quite like I’d always pictured him to be when not in the company of giggling drunken women. He was playful and mischievous with an "it’s-all-good" air about him. He radiated comedy and cheer, consequently making everyone around him smile to themselves subconsciously. I got past the fact that I had... well, given him a boner, and started to recognize the little things about him I hadn’t before. He was smart like James, very quick with magic and very good at learning new things. Not to say he was keen on studying or anything like that. His intelligence was more natural than forced, as he preferred to spend his time thinking up new pranks over reading.

            Remus I still didn’t know very well. He was shy and often ill, and he never quite seemed comfortable in my company. I frequently caught him shooting glances at James, asking some unknown question with his eyes. I liked him well enough and got the feeling he liked me as well, to an extent. I was too busy studying to pay too much mind to his odd behavior though, so I let it die. Peter, of course, I still had mixed feelings about, and spent as little time possible around him alone.

            The Marauders were collectively ingenious. I realized this soon after I’d witnessed their planning sessions. Before I hung around them, I had thought their schemes merely parlor tricks in comparison to my gambling nights. A bit full of myself, I realized I had been, with not a little surprise. I amazed myself even further by extending suggestions here or there, and soon actually became one of their valuable strategic assets. Their conversations were generally as seemingly scripted as Arabella’s and mine were, also to my chagrin. James seemed increasingly familiar; increasingly like me, I suppose you could say. I began to become accustomed to his habits and hopes and dreams, and everything I knew about him gradually fell into place.

            Everything he stood for seemed to be so good and sweet and pure. All of his intentions were ultimately for the good. He pranked on people, sure, but never to be deliberately malicious. Perhaps to tease the Slytherins a bit or ruffle the Ravenclaws and their holier-than-thou presences, but never to cause physical harm or destroy. There seemed to be a fine line that the Marauders rarely walked. If a prank seemed too hurtful to any one innocent person, they would instantaneously drop the idea and forget they’d ever thought of it. Not to say they didn’t attack Snape and the rest of the Slytherins in every possible way they could. It was spirited and their subjects deserved what they got for the most part, anyway. I delighted in seeing their schemes unravel. It always seemed seventy percent for the love of the joke, and thirty percent for the chaos it ensued. I liked that.

            Somewhere, as the months passed and we crashed into June, I stopped being Lucius’s-girl-Lily and started being Lily, just Lily. I started to see the big picture more and minded the little things less. I laughed a lot and stopped frowning and talked to James and by the end of the school year, I hadn’t gained any more bruises, much to my delight. No new scars popped up on my arms either, although I worriedly saw that Arabella was nearly always covered in them. I offered to heal them for her several times, but she merely shook her head and told me she needed them to remind herself of things. I didn’t understand, but let her alone anyway. Aria always had her reasons.

            She hung out with Lucius and Narcissa and occasionally Mundungus Fletcher, while I hung out with the Marauders. But we had a silent agreement: best friends forever, no matter what.

            Meanwhile, I realized that perhaps the whole Mage deal wasn’t quite what I’d thought it would be. By the last week of the term, I still hadn’t mastered Elemental Positioning, the current section I was attempting to learn. Three months of hardcore studying had gotten me only a little over half way done with the material, and even that seemed a bit fuzzy. The trouble was that the elements themselves were quite boring. It was a bit like studying Muggle law, if you asked me, filled with lots of facts that rarely ever came into account. You still had to know them all anyway, just in case you one day needed them.

            Six days before school let out, a Sunday, James went to the Ministry and passed his test to become a general Mage like I was. We celebrated by putting away the books for a day and treating ourselves to a Hogsmeade excursion, Sirius in tow. The end of the year exams had also just taken place, and my cumulative group of friends had done quite well, which seemed only an added reason to take a break. James and Sirius had come out first and second respectively in Transfiguration, I had come out first in Charms, Arabella first in Potions closely followed by Lucius, and Narcissa and Remus had both made splendid work of Defense Against The Dark Arts. Actually, we had all made at least the top ten in all of our classes, save Sirius who came in twenty-second in Herbology. He blamed this on our professor, who had lowered his scores for flirting with the pretty Ravenclaw witch to his left while testing.

            Now we were strolling down the main street of Hogsmeade, peeking in the shop windows, and discussing random things such as the weather. I was pleased to see that Sirius seemed completely at ease with me hanging around so much, or else if he did have a problem with it, he never showed it. It was a good sign.

            Sirius himself was babbling at me, in fact. "Recently it’s been right good Quidditch weather if you ask me, ideal you see, every aspect of the game can be fine-tuned with this breeze—oh, look at that, a flashing candy cane!—not a cloud in sight, which improves things even more, although admittedly it makes the Snitch easier to catch. Lily, you like Quidditch, don’t you, of course you do—what’s that over there? Oh, Madame Rosmerta’s, right then!—now which is your favorite position?"

            "Er," I said, trying to follow his line of thought, "sexual or Quidditch?"

            James chuckled at that, but Sirius continued on undaunted. "No need to be such a sex kitten my dear, we’ll save that for when Jamesie isn’t around, you know, plenty of time, plenty of time... chaser, beater, seeker, keeper, perhaps?"

            With a shrug I said, "Chaser."

            "Oh, that’s actually quite interesting. Why?" Sirius said, now positively hopping along beside me. James was smoothing away his cloak with a smile on his face, his dizzy eyes lit up with an intense joy I loved to see in him. He appeared to be glowing with accomplishment, and his happiness was putting me into a bolder-than-usual mood.

            "Because, ah, they’re the fastest," I said, as we began to cross the street. "I love the game myself. I always have. The chasers really get off, and it’s amazing to watch."

            "I really get you off? What was that?" James raised his eyebrows playfully at me.

            "Ooooooooooh, you’re dirty, Lily!" said Sirius, clapping his hands together.

            I laughed and lightly punched James on the shoulder. "I’m starting to think you accomplishing this is a bad thing. Your head is getting too big for your body."

            "Which head?" Sirius asked wickedly.

            "The one he thinks with," I retorted coolly.

            "The one in his pants, then," Sirius nodded wisely.

            James spluttered with laughter and shook his head--the one attached to his neck--in silent protest. "Yeah right," he said, "if I thought with the one in my pants you wouldn’t have been invited along on this excursion, Sier. Would’ve been just me and my lady, seduction and fine dining."

            "Your lady?" Sirius and I asked in unison.

            "My guest," he corrected himself with a sly grin. "You know I’m just kidding, Lily. I wouldn’t do that to you. By the way, Sirius, we need to start planning for the next Quidditch game. We have to meet with Oleander and discuss our strategy for the championship. Ravenclaw’s been particularly good this year and you know how brilliant they are in class; we’re going to need to win the Cup to push Gryffindor over for the end of the year House winnings."

            "Right, so the famous James Potter is actually worried about Quidditch, then?" Sirius said, fishing around in his pockets (and then much to my horror, mine) for a wand. Grabbing mine, he brandished it at James with a deliciously wicked grin on his handsome young face. "Engarde, coward! You have disgraced the name of the Marauders in front of the lady!"

            James brandished his as well, tossing his head in a goofy sort of way that vaguely reminded me of some sort of psychotic stallion. "Forgive me for reminding you of a training session, you knave! Ahha, let us duel!"

            Both boys clashed wands old fashioned style. ("To hell with magic!" Sirius whooped as he did a would-be drop kick, missing James by a mile.) James did an odd tribal dance before smacking his best friend upside the head with a fierce war cry. Sirius responded by howling his head off and trying to stick my wand up James’s nose. I, coming to my senses, burst in and grabbed my wand just before it was to be imminently slimed. "We’re in public," I said tonelessly, thanking God there was no one from school around to recognize us.

            "Your point?" Sirius asked, vainly trying to kip my wand from my very hand. James grinned and tossed his head in that wretched way of his again.

            "Men," I noted to no one in particular as I put my wand safely away, "are ridiculous."

            "We noticed," the boys chorused in their buoyant voices, each grabbing one of my hands and escorting me happily the rest of the way across the street. _He’s touching me and I can feel the blood pulsing through his veins. James Potter, Quidditch all star... James Potter, mage... James Potter, teenage boy... is touching.. touching me. He’s a teenage boy and he’s touching me and he’s not hurting me and oh my God, his hand is so soft, so gentle, so comforting... Don’t let go, don’t let go. Let me drown in your dizzy eyes forever. Dizzy dizzy dizzy eyes... You leave me breathless._

            We went into Madame Rosmerta’s for some Butterbeers, and ended up taking them outside to sit on the curb. Sirius stirred his with his finger, sipped it noisily, and kept himself quiet while James and I talked quietly. My hand was splayed out next to his, and I kept having the overwhelming urge to trace my fingers down his. He was taking no notice to my hands, though; he was looking in my eyes. He always looked into my eyes when he talked to me, and I always looked somewhere, anywhere, else to avoid getting too caught up in his dizziness.

            "What are you staring at me for?" I asked after a minute, as he shifted his hand ever so delicately so that his pinky made contact with mine. He didn’t reply for a moment, just tipped my chin up a little so I was forced to look back at him.

            "Forgive me, but your eyes..." he said with a frown.

            "What?"

            "Nothing. Nothing."

            "What?"

            "No, nothing."

            "Alright," I said, looking back down to our hands. He looked down too.

            "My fingers hurt," he said.

            "Why?"

            Lifting his hand up, he pointed out several scars running down them. I couldn’t help myself; I reached out and took his hand in mine. I had never noticed the scars before. "These," he said simply.

            "Why don’t you heal them? You healed mine. I can heal them for you, if you want."

            "These scars are special, though," he smiled, looking over for an instant at Sirius who seemed to be oblivious, and then frowned. "I was going to heal them, but I got them when I was twelve, and Professor Dumbledore told me they were special back then. He told me they were useful reminders of things long past."

            For a moment I was slightly reminded of Arabella. "But if they’re good reminders, why did you heal mine?"

            "Because I don’t want you to have to be reminded at all. It was my hope that you being friends with me would... distract you from that kind of thing."

            I frowned. "I’m not a charity case, you know, James. You don’t have to hang around with me just because you’re afraid I’m going to go kill myself. I’m not suicidal. I’m just sad."

            "I didn’t mean it like that," he said, looking a little surprised. "I just--"

            "Aren’t you sad?" I interrupted him, locking my eyes onto his. A wave of absolute dizzy serenity passed over me, knocking away my breath. James flinched, though, surprised, and he took a minute to think up an answer. Before he could say anything, Sirius stood up, stretched, and raised an eyebrow at us.

            "Holding hands are we? Why was I not included?"

            Snatching his hand away, James shrugged. "You were getting drunk."

            "Was not," Sirius retorted with a haughty sniff. I sighed; James grinned. "But besides, can we go wander about now? I’m done, and you two wasted the fizz on yours, because you were too busy talking about scars and all that nonsense. See, I do pay attention. Sometimes. A little. Kind of."

            "Right," James said, "let’s go."

            And we did.

 

& & & & & & & & & & &

 

Graduation was approaching. Seventh years all over the school were bustling about importantly, worrying about their exams, and consequently drinking up a storm. Lucius was having his important drinking bashes and sending over booze by the caseload to my Saturday gambling nights. I had recently stopped attending them myself, leaving the actual monitoring to Arabella and Narcissa. I was far too busy to waste even one night a week flirting up the boys and acting as if I cared about so-and-so’s big loss at the craps table. Instead I took over the careful scrutinizing of the parties, personally setting up the wards, managing the money we brought in, and occasionally decorating the place black as more and more people began to be killed by Voldemort.

            Elemental Positioning was starting to come easier and more naturally to me, although the magic usually physically stung my mind with its power. The books had warned of that. I often got migraines from studying so much, but part of me knew I was also getting them because the spells were too difficult for fourteen-year-olds to tackle. One of the reasons hardly anyone learned Mages until after Hogwarts was because of the pain. Some subjects were alright and generally quite mild, like General Magic and Time Abstraction and Remembrancy. Some were slightly painful, like Elemental Positioning and Material Distortion and Metamorphosis. Others would break me, especially Dark Arts and Death Manipulation. I decided to give myself the summer to master Elemental Positioning. It would give me something to lose myself in the three months I would otherwise be imminently miserable.

            Up until this point I haven’t really talked much about my family. My mother was an alcoholic (like Lucius), as I might have mentioned before. She was highly religious and all she did was drown in her own misery. Every minute spent with my mother was like a minute spent in a frozen over hell. Sometimes, when the mood struck her, she would make me take ten baths in a row... psychotically convinced that if only she made me do it enough, I could bathe away her sins. Other times she simply looked at me, burst into tears, and locked herself in her room for days on end. When my sister Petunia and I had been small, we had often had to go without food for days on end while she got herself together. She hated me because she had disgraced her family by rendezvousing with an American and having premarital sex (many times over, apparently, judging by the results she got: Petunia and I).

            Not that my sister herself was much better, of course. She was so apathetic, so absolutely bland, that it was simply impossible to have a conversation with her. Everything she said disagreed with me and likewise everything I said put a scowl on her face. She had no idea who I was, and it didn’t seem very likely she’d to want to know me that summer either. She resented the fact that I, little wretch of a girl that I was, was a witch. It stood to reason that I was absolutely Muggle-born (unless Father was a wizard, which was improbable). Still though, it also stood to reason that she as my sister would also have magical blood flowing through her veins. However, something, for some reason, had always stopped her from being a witch. For a while after I got my letter she had been positive she’d be getting one too sometime--but then she didn’t, and she couldn’t do magic either, and she got sad, and she started to hate me. All in all, I wasn’t looking forward to being kept in isolation for three months. It was all I could do to study for my next Mage, I supposed.

            To avoid thinking of the fast-coming summer, I worked fervently on the last gambling night of the year. It was my goal to bring in as much money as I possibly could. I suddenly had out of the blue decided I wanted to buy myself a small flat somewhere when I turned sixteen. I could then legally separate myself from my mother and my sister and live on my own. Maybe Arabella, who hated her parents vividly, would also join me. It would be amazing, and I could already picture it. We could live somewhere that there were other magical people like us, not just ordinary Muggles who didn’t understand anything. We could have the perfect summers there when we got to go home from Hogwarts. It sounded lovely.

            After everything was finished, we had only one day of school left of the year, and something happened to me that changed my life.

            That last day at breakfast, the owls swooped down, and much to my surprise, dropped something onto my plate of sausage and pancakes. Several seats down the table, something dropped on James’s plate as well. We leaned forward, looked down the table at each other silently sharing our moment of wonder, and then began to examine the small white envelopes that had been given to us.

            "What’s that?" Arabella asked me through a mouth full of orange juice.

            "Dunno," I said, reading the front, which simply read _Lily_.

            "Well, open it," she said, attacking her egg with her fork, much as Sirius was doing next to James.

            I did.

 

_Dear Miss Evans,_

_It has come to our attention that you have scored abnormally well on all of your exams again this year, as we understand you always have in the past. We have decided, because of your excellent marks, leadership qualities, and influence amongst the student body, to accept you into a most elite group of students for your fifth year. You, along with another person from your house, will represent Gryffindor as Prefects next fall. We heartily congratulate you on this achievement, for only Hogwarts’ finest are invited to take on such a role._

_Please note that your acceptance into the group of Prefects will change many things for you in your fifth and sixth years. You will have a great deal more privileges than other students, a lot more responsibilities, and will also be in the running for Head Girl in your seventh and final year. We trust that you will handle your duties in such a manner that would make our school proud._

_The first mandatory meeting will be held on September 1st of the next school year, shortly before the sorting begins. More information will be sent home to you over the summer regarding this, your duties, and what is to come. We look forward to working with you in the coming years, and bid you a wonderful break._

_Yours most sincerely,_

_Professor Albus Dumbledore_

_Headmaster_

_Professor Minerva McGonagall_

_Deputy Headmistress_

 

            "Holy crap," Arabella said, forgetting her fork as it clattered to the ground. I, with my mouth wide open, leaned forward again and met James’s stare. He looked as surprised as I felt, which was really saying something. Slumping back in my chair, I nodded slowly.

            "Indeed. Holy crap, indeed..."

 

 

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Author's Note: Yes, more AU. James is a Prefect. :) Barring that, eh, this one was okay. Please do review and bolster my vanity. Many thanks in advance.   



	11. Prefects

**Deconstruct, a Memoir**

By Solarism

_Chapter Ten – Prefects_

{This chapter’s song is “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys.}

 

 

 

My mother slumped out of her bedroom in her bathrobe and slippers, eye mask caught in her unkempt hair. From the photos I’d seen, my mother used to be a very beautiful woman, but as I looked at her that morning, I couldn’t help but being a little repulsed. Mascara stained her cheeks, welts and bruises that looked like fingernail marks covered her neck, her teeth were out of place and yellowed, and she had gained a considerable amount of weight. She was my mother and I was supposed to love her, but considering she had put me through hell since the day I was born, I didn’t feel bad for feeling this way. Especially since, after pouring herself a mug of coffee, she lifted her eyes (which had week old make up caked on them) in my direction and frowned.

"Who let you in?" she asked, clinking her mug down on the counter, amid coupon cut outs and old magazine articles proclaiming amazing weight loss or breast enhancement. She did not look at all happy to see me (not that she ever did, really), but I smiled at her nonetheless. Towards the end of the summer I knew I would be going insane because of just such comments of hers, but for now I could at least keep my cool.

"Petunia," I said, setting down the toast I had made for myself. "I arrived four days ago, actually. You were apparently indisposed. How have you been, Mama? Keeping up well, I assume? Do you have enough money?"

"Money," my mother spat, "is the devil."

"If you didn’t have enough for some reason," I continued, taking a sip of my milk, "I could always go to our wizarding bank and convert some of my money for you. I have plenty. You know, if you need anything. Like eggs, maybe. I noticed you didn’t have any. I was going to make omelets."

"As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death," she said suddenly, her eyes going wide, "I shall fear no evil—"

"For your Lord God is with you?" I raised my eyebrows with a slight sigh.

"You are not welcome in this household, you demon," she cried, "out with you! Out! Get out! In the name of His Righteousness our Lord God, I command you to leave this household immediately. You are sin! Sin!"

"I am your daughter, Mama," I said, grabbing my plate and cup and pushing my chair in. "I am only staying for the summer as I have no place else to go. Come September I promise I’ll be out of your hair and gone for nine months straight. All year round if I can manage it somehow, actually."

"Sin," my mother said, pressing herself up against the refrigerator and breathing hard, "sin."

"Yes," I said with a casual glance over my shoulder as I made my way to the stairs, "I know." Loud music was blaring from what I could only imagine to be Petunia’s room, since God knows my mother never played rock and roll. I peeked in, and saw my tall, blonde-haired sister admiring herself in the mirror. "Hello," I said.

"Out, freak," she said, not even bothering to turn around. She was pinning something up in her hair--a clip or something, it looked like.

"I brought toast," I said, "and it’s the last of the bread. You like toast. Or at least you did... Do you still? If so, you can have this."

"Bread has carbs," Petunia sniffed, finally getting the clip in.

"Ah," I said.

"Carbs are bad," she added, powdering her long neck with something that smelled vaguely of lilac. "They make you fat."

"I see," I said.

"No," she sighed, "you don’t."

"How’s school?"

"I am not inviting you in."

"I didn’t ask you to. How’s school?"

"Wonderful, actually. Much better than Pigzits, or whatever the place you go to’s called. I’m in love with the most wonderful man. He’s several years olde, yes, four actually--he’s twenty, but his father owns the drill company down in town. He’s so very interesting. Much more interesting than your boyfriend, if you even have one."

"I don’t," I said.

"That’s so amusing, you know, not even another freak wants to be seen with you, you’re so horrid."

"Just wretched, I’m sure," I said, thinking of Lucius, and then of James for some odd reason.

"Anyway, I met Vernon about three months ago when he came to deliver a load of drills to my school. I just happened to be up in the Headmistress’s office, complaining about some rabble rouser of a girl who wore blue socks to school instead of our mandatory black, and there he was. He came in very smoothly; held the door for elderly Mrs. Beatrix too, the dear. He drummed up a conversation with me while he was waiting to see who to deliver the drills to, and the rest is history. I am going to marry that man."

"Ah," I said for the second time.

"He’s so lovely and strong, all the man one could ever need, and he’s so very intriguing. He knows all about drills. Every model, size, shape, color or anything; you can ask him and he knows it. It’s just the most amazing..."

But I had already gotten bored of her and wandered off, leaving her to entertain herself with her insipid tales of fancy. I had better things to do. In fact, as soon as I got to my room I got out my better thing to do: a thick stack of Potions homework that was screaming to be reviewed.

\-----

The last night of the miserable summer, I kept myself from jumping out the window by rereading the letters I had received from friends and those I had received in regards to being a Prefect. My mother had been particularly fastidious that day and my sister certainly no better, so I had locked myself shakily in the room I called my own.

_Lily,_

_I miss you, my flower. You know you’re always welcome to come to me, if you wish it. Just send the word and I will have someone come and escort you straight away to the mansion. You’ve really become rather necessary to me... every day without you I grow more and more anxious. I’ve tortured three house elves already (in all seriousness), all because not being around you is driving me stir crazy. Where are your sweet kisses? I wish I knew._

_Urgently,_

_Lucius_

Several times I had actually been tempted to take Lucius up on his offer, but then I would always remember what he probably had in mind for me and my ‘sweet kisses’. Now that I knew James, now that I knew Remus and Sirius too actually, there was no way I could ever compromise myself for Lucius in that way again. I still did have affection for him, an attraction, a crush on him... But morally, he was not at all my type. I found it funny that I actually had a type, when just a year ago I was ready to lap dance anyone for some quick money.

_Dearest Lily,_

_I understand that you are once again being held in captivity in your mother’s sticky little web of Catholicism, as you relayed in your last correspondence. While you do have my sympathy, I unfortunately cannot offer you a place to stay here either since (as you know) my parental units are equally as beastly as yours is. At this point, I am quite as ready to slit my wrists and "screw it all" as you are, I’m sure. We really must start saving for that flat for next summer, by the by, for I am growing quite tired of being beaten to an inch of my life. I’m sure you’ve already realized the necessity for just such a safe house come next break, my darling chum, and rightly so._

_It is not at all proper etiquette for me to be relaying such a thing via the post, but I do have something to tell you that you might be interested in hearing about. Whatever you’ve been feeding Lucius Malfoy this summer, you have still got him as ensnared as ever. I thought you avoiding him at the end of last year would have given him a jolt into reality, but it seems that this is not at all the case. Be careful about him, Lily, because what I’m about to tell you is the truth, and that frightens me as much as it will certainly frighten you. In the Daily Prophet there was an article, which I enclose now for reference, that the Malfoy gardens are being completely uprooted. Quote: "Mr. Malfoy told the press today that his son, Lucius Malfoy Jr., requested that there only be white tiger lilies growing everywhere. He is quoted by saying that ‘his son insisted there was simply nothing more beautiful than a pale lily close to one’s heart’. Here at the Daily Prophet, we believe that perhaps the young Malfoy heir’s heart has been getting closer to things other than the flowers he grows in his garden. Wedding bells will soon be chiming, we’re sure."_

_This concerns me for obvious reasons. I know that in the recent past I have taken Lucius’s side when it came to your relationship with him, but now I fear that he is becoming somewhat unstable. I must stress that such a thing is potentially dangerous. I think, if you ever become uncomfortable, you should not hesitate to go to Dumbledore immediately. I must take your leave now my darling, for it is late and my eyes are tired. I will see you on the train on September 1st, complete with your school supplies. (I got everything on your list and saved your change, no worries.)_

_All my love,_

_Arabella_

This was indeed an interesting letter, and I read it with careful interest. Part of me, deep within, was clutched with uneasiness. Part of me, however, also realized that this could, in a way, be a good thing--depending on how events went from here on out. The content of the letter was soon out my mind though. I just particularly loved to look at Aria’s handwriting. It was so perfectly wispy, so spidery, so beautiful that it captivated me. Her vocabulary was as always refined... and the way she signed her name just gave me a sense of something I couldn’t quite place. I liked that.

_Lil-lay-us-down-and-kiss-us-senseless,_

**Sirius wrote that.** _No I didn’t, Remus did._ I did not. _Yes, you did._ No, I really didn’t _. Yes, you really, really did, Moonykins._ **Stop.** _Aww, but Jamesie…_ **Padfoot, you’re asking for it, I’m sorry.** _Yay._ Did you just say yay? _No, I just wrote yay._ Oh. Did you just write yay? **Yes, he did.** Oh. _Yeah man, rock on._ **You need a psychiatrist.** _Since when do you know how to spell psychiatrist? Since _when do either of you know what psychiatrist means? _We resent that._ **Yes, we most certainly do. We’re forgetting Lily _._** _Who?_ Lily. _Who?_ **Lily**. _WHO?_ Idiot. _Yay._ **Merlin…**

Anyway, hello, we are bored and this is Remus. **And I’mJames** _and I’m Sirius._ **You said I could write to you so I guess I finally am.** _You mean we finally are, Jamesie._ **My name is not Jamesie. Why can’t you just call me Prongs like a proper Marauder?** He’s right, his name is Mr. Tinglemuffin, remember? _Hahahahaha._ **Shut UP, Remus.** _Yay. Yay! Inside jokes are cool!_ **How’s the Prefectualthingamajig going for you, Lily? My parents freaked out and kissed me—it was rather unnerving, really. They’re amazed their boy--little devil that I am--is turning out ‘good’.** _That’s dumb, James, you’re rotten to the core._ Yep, really rotten. _Shhhh, Remus, you’re spoiling the moment!!_ How am I spoiling the moment and WHY do your exclamation points have hearts for dots? _Ummm, I can be pretty, too?_ **We’re going to go now, sorry for wasting your time and see you September 1st.**

**Love,**

_(OH, THAT’S CUTE, JAMESIE.)_

**(Shut up, Sirius.)**

_(Make me :D)_

**James** _/ Sirius /_ Remus

That, to say the least, amused me and made me terribly homesick for Hogwarts. I put away my friends’ letters and looked over the instructions Dumbledore and McGonagall had sent me about being a Prefect. There was a long list of rules, responsibilities, duties, etc... Some of which looked intriguing, others just plain boring (such as showing the new first years to their dorm rooms). I wondered what the kids from my Saturday night gambling sprees would say when they saw me ushering small children to and fro throughout the castle. Laugh their asses off, most likely, but I was resigned to being labeled a dork anyway. It wouldn’t be too bad if James was one too. Maybe we could turn being a Prefect into something...stylish together. Although James wasn’t really one to be concerned with style... hmm.

I checked for the sixth time that night that all my bags were perfectly packed, dusted my entire room, got ready for bed, and didn’t go to sleep for a long, long time.

\-----

I ended up having to take another taxi to the train station since neither my mother nor sister would drive me. I had driven my own car that summer a bit, the one that I kind of owned illegally since I was still under the accepted driving age, but I wasn’t about to just leave it at the train station for nine months. Regardless, I got there on time and crossed the barrier into platform nine and three quarters without a problem. Standing there, the pure magic in the air took my breath away. I stared up at the big scarlet train, and felt my heart give a leap of joy. I was going home, I was going home...

Something hard, big, and merciless crashed into my back, causing me to yelp (mostly from surprise). "Dude," Sirius Black said, sporting a classy pair of black Muggle sunglasses, "you’re, like, supposed to move."

"Sirius," I smiled, "I didn’t know you were behind me. Sorry, I kind of didn’t think people could... run into each other coming through the barrier. It’s never happened to me before."

Sirius looked puzzled. "You’re odd, Lil-lay-me-down-and-kiss-me-senseless, but I love you anyway. Have a good summer?" He pulled my trolley with his well out of the way of the barrier, just in time to save us from another collision with a small girl who looked ghostly pale already, probably from nervousness. It had to be her first year.

"Of course," I said, "what with you and James and Remus and your oh so entertaining letter. Speaking of them--"

"On the train already, I think. Let’s go look for them. We probably look like nerds just standing here and gabbing. Well, you probably look like a nerd. I look like a tremendous catch. Note the shades."

"Uh huh."

Sirius smiled happily, tossed his head in what was obviously meant as a hair flip, and because he lacked long enough hair to actually do so, just ended up just looking like James had last year when they had made fools of themselves in Hogsmeade. Boys were dumb. He was a gentleman, however, when it came to helping me get my stuff on the train, insisting I wait and let him help me with my bags. I curtsied to him sweetly and he bowed, sunglasses drooping down his nose as he did so, and I resisted the urge to burst out laughing at him. I didn’t even _ask_ where he happened to have acquired the ‘shades’. His chivalry unfortunately ended there as he was much too preoccupied once on the train to remember to wait for me. He instead ran up and down the aisles, banging on everyone’s doors and shouting "Yoho, Jamesie! Yoho, Remus! Yoho, Pete! Your Padfoot has arrived!!!" Hearts on the exclamation points and all, I was sure.

I saw him squeal like a small schoolgirl and pounce into one of the compartments, so I followed in the general direction of all the giggling. Much to my surprise, Arabella was in there with the rest of the Marauders already, reading the Daily Prophet and completely ignoring the boys as they body slammed each other affectionately. "Lil-lay!" they all shouted (excluding Aria and Peter and, I noticed, James’s sister Melissa who merely smiled a small, embarassed hello). The boys grabbed me and all my stuff and enveloped me in one great big body slam. I managed to escape onto Aria’s lap with my chest intact (they were _rough_ ), and blink.

"Hello," she said, not even looking up from her paper.

"Hello," I said, sliding off her lap with my bags and settling comfortably into the seat next to her, "been here long?"

"Oh, awhile, awhile..." she said, folding her paper and smiling softly at me. "Why you insist on hanging out with these plebeians..."

"I prefer the term tossers, actually," James said, grinning and hopping into the seat next to me, lightly pushing Melissa over a little.

"I don’t like him," Arabella said, pointing one of her long fingers at James. James just smiled happily, reached over, and patted her knee for her. She scowled.

Remus was forcing Sirius and Peter into their seats, and settling in himself. "Okay, let’s calm down. We don’t want to tip the train just yet," he said, smiling a smile that made him look very pretty (for a boy, anyway).

"Yeah," Sirius said, whipping off his sunglasses and running a hand through his deep black hair, "wouldn’t want to cause a... commotion..."

"And please don’t do that," Arabella said unexpectedly. Everyone paused and looked at her.

"Why not?" Sirius asked curiously.

"Because it’s really, unnervingly attractive."

"Oho," Sirius and James murmured in unison. I giggled, Peter blushed, and Remus smirked into his book bag. Arabella sat monotone as ever. "We know who Arabella likes," James continued after the initial ooh.

"That we do," I agreed.

Arabella wordlessly picked her paper back up and began reading again.

Melissa leaned over James’s lap and pinched my arm. "Hi, Lily!" she said, smiling again at me. I smiled and greeted her back. _I hope she gets into Gryffindor. Her eyes aren’t dizzy like James’s, but she’s a good girl..._

Peter surprised me immensely by smiling at me. I, confused and surprised, smiled back. Remus noticed, caught my eye, and sent me a nod of approval. I felt good. It was so nice to see everyone again and to be caught up once again in the Marauders and their utter silliness. It meant a lot that Aria was there, too. It showed that she really had been concerned when she had read about Lucius, because otherwise she’d have been sharing a compartment with him and Narcissa right then instead of with me and the boys. I was glad she was my best friend. She was lovely.

The train tooted its merry horn, and all of a sudden we were moving down the track, laughing and talking and catching up and just being us, just being kids... I was going home.

\-----

"First years, follow us!" James shouted down the table as the welcoming feast ended. He grabbed my hand and held it up so that everyone could make no mistake that he and I, with our shiny new Prefect badges, were there to guide them to their new common room. A gaggle of mousy looking children shyly crept up to us (many of which had gravy stains already on their robes, I noted, a trifle disgusted). I recognized the girl that Sirius and I had seen on the platform there, now to her credit a bit more rosy in the cheeks. Also in the group, I was relieved and happy to note, was Melissa Potter. She was beaming happily, trying to catch James’s eye. "First years, we’re Prefects here, so follow us. First year Gryffindors!" James shouted again.

Sirius sniggered into his hand as he passed us, quickly turning it into a cough as I shot him a look of pure venom. "Yes, children," I picked up uncertainly, "follow us..." James laughed at me and I shrugged. I had no idea what I was doing.

He dropped my hand and instead draped his arm around my shoulder saying, "Oh, Lily, such a kidder, such a kidder..." I froze. _James Potter has his arm around me and he is talking to me and what is he saying I can’t tell oh no there’s his eyes green brown black blue golden golden all golden beautiful swish dart dizzy dazzle dart in the dark inspire me, dizzy dazzle dizzy..._

But he didn’t take it off. He spun me around, motioned with his fingers for the kids to follow us, and began the journey to our common room. The small throng of kids followed us, quite interested in our chummy appearance. One little boy who barely came up to James’s waist jogged along beside us pretending to be a rat. Melissa was chattering quietly along with another little girl somewhere toward the back of the first years. I kept hearing snatches of "my brother" and "Christmas.” The girl from the train station walked beside me, staring up at me in some sort of stupor. "Yes?" I eventually said, relaxing in James’s hold at the same time and lightly slinging one of my arms around his back.

"Your hair is pretty," she said simply.

"Thank you," I said, a little nonplussed.

James twirled a piece of it around his finger, pulled it lightly and stuck his tongue out at me. "Yeah, Carrots, real sexy."

"Touchy feely today, aren’t we, James--or should I say Jamesie?"

"Don’t you start," he said, exasperation clear in his voice. "I can vaguely tolerate it from Sirius, but not from you."

"Are you that lady’s boyfriend?" the rat boy next to James asked as we turned a corner.

"No, I’m her geek in shining armor," he said without pause, "and she’s one of my best friends."

"Yeah," I added, kind of enjoying myself, "and he’s one of mine."

"Really?" James said in all seriousness, raising an eyebrow at me.

"Yeah..." I said, smiling a little. "Didn’t you know?"

He shrugged and we walked the rest of the way in a companionable silence. When we got to the portrait of the fat lady, Gryffindor’s entrance, he let go of me and I felt a sense of warmth physically leave my body. It made me frown.

"This week’s password is bauble tree," James told the kids.

"You’ll have to remember it," I added, "and you’re not allowed to tell anybody from any other house how to get to this place or the password to get in, got it? Bauble tree." The portrait swung open most obligingly.

"If you need help," James continued, "you can ask an older student or Lily and me any time you want to. We’re always available for help and advice. Think of us as your big brother and sister for the next three years until we graduate and you’re smart enough to think for yourselves anyway. Right. Everyone in, then."

"This is the common room," I explained as we climbed in. "You’ll spend most of your free time here over the course of the next seven years so, er, get used to it. Girls have the dormitories to the left, boys to the right. Got it?"

There was a murmur of understanding from the first years.

"Good," James and I said together.

After we had seen them all safely up to their dorms, we returned to the common room to check in with each other. "We make a good team," James said.

"We do," I agreed.

"I’m glad this is going to work out. We’re really something else together."

"More than you know..." I murmured, staring down at the carpet.

"Hm?" he smiled.

"Nothing."

"Ah, well, goodnight, Lily. Good dreams."

"Yeah, you too."

He reached out and hugged me awkwardly. I hugged back and realized that I didn’t want to let go. Ever.

"I missed you," he said.

"I missed you, too."

He let go of me, but still lightly held onto me by the shoulders. He looked me in the eyes and simply said, "Good. Very, very good."

And it was all I could do to agree.

 

 

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Author's Note: Beh. Review! 


	12. Sex Symbols & Quidditch

** Deconstruct, a Memoir **

By Solarism

_ Chapter Eleven—Sex Symbols & Quidditch _

{This chapter’s song is “Shackled” by Vertical Horizon}

 

            I was sitting on the Quidditch pitch bleachers in the same spot I’d sat in the day Arabella had told me that someday Lucius would definitely love me nearly a year earlier. She’d brushed some hair out of my eyes, laughed, and told me to be careful. We’d wandered back to the castle, closer than ever, and I’d felt at peace. A lot had changed since then.

Aria herself had declined to come to today’s Quidditch match (a very rare occurrence indeed) for reasons unbeknownst to me... and normally this would have worried me out of my mind. However, it was absolutely impossible to be anything less than carefree on a day like that one, the day of the first Quidditch match and the day that James Potter had decided to sit next to me for the duration of said match. Gryffindor wasn’t playing this one—it was Ravenclaw vs. Hufflepuff—and for the first time in my five years at Hogwarts, James had deemed me worthy enough to sit next to. I, of course, was delighted out of my mind.

            Sirius had chosen to sit on the other side of me, but for old time’s sake, he’d scooped me into his lap five minutes into the game. I was laughing too hard at his tickling to be annoyed with my new seating arrangement, and then after he stopped tickling, too engrossed with the way James eyed the game to even notice Sirius eyeing my breasts. James was always on the edge of his seat when watching Quidditch—you could tell everything about it thrilled him. He was visibly elated when a stunt was performed flawlessly, and completely stricken when one team lost possession of the Quaffle to the other. You could tell in every way that he longed to be out there too, soaring on his broomstick, and outwitting every player either team had to offer as his sorry opposition.

            Soon Sirius was equally as caught up in the plays as James was, so I quietly slid off his lap, lightly bumping my thigh with James’s. A dirty, ecstatic feeling rushed through me as his eyes glanced away from the match for a moment to look me in the eye. His glorious lips curved sweetly upward, and I knew as I peered deeply into those dizzy eyes, that I _liked_ him. I liked the cerulean and golden flares in the pools of chocolate brown, I liked the way his nose would be comical if it were any longer, and I liked the way he was handsome beyond any other boy I could possibly imagine—Lucius included. Lucius was sexy, yes, but James was gorgeous. His long lashes lightly hit his smooth cheeks as he blinked, his head swerving back toward the game. I was envious of those lashes, so pure, beautiful, and long...

            I liked the way he was quirky, how he’d walk around writing notes in the margin of foreign-based difficultly-titled books, and how he’d stick random things in his pockets to reexamine later on during his day. I liked how he liked to touch, and I liked how he’d asked me if I believed in magic that day he’d kidnapped me for a day in Hogsmeade... I liked his friends, his family, the way he saw the world, and the way he was better than me when it came to studying for the Mages.  Pretty blue sapphires studded both his and my rings now—on this particular day, I wore two, and he wore the mandatory one as was prescribed.

            I _liked_ James; I really liked him. I didn’t like him in the way I’d liked Lucius all the years prior, though. I was quite sure that was something wholly different—pastel in flavor if my past lusts could be considered neon. That is not to say my current like paled in comparison to my past feelings (oh, but how to describe those feelings?) for my Slytherin... Slytherin... hmm. What was Lucius, really? What was I to him? Not his girlfriend, not his protégée. I wasn’t sure what our relationship to each other should’ve been called, so dismissed it. Watching James rise an inch out of his seat, grinning and cheering as Ravenclaw scored a goal, I knew that I preferred this sweet neutral to the glaring loudness that had been Lucius’s kisses. James, I was sure, kissed sugary and chastely... he wouldn’t ravage me or give me bruises. He’d just hold me. Hold me?

            As Ravenclaw’s seeker immediately caught the snitch only seconds after their goal, James and Sirius stood up and high-fived each other over my head. Their hands, in the split second they connected, blocked out the sun in an eclipse-like fashion directly in my line of view. I smiled and shook my head. Who was I kidding? James Potter would never hold me. Not in that way, at least. He was much more at home giving me his dizzy smiles than kissing me—much more adept at being my confidant than my boyfriend, I was sure. Still, he had kissed me that one time last Christmas...

            Ah, but I was fooling myself if I believed that had meant anything to him. It had definitely sent a thrill through my body, but it had done nothing for James. To him I was just a new, interesting friend. Someone to be studied, someone to confide in, someone to occasionally invite home for the holidays... But I was not someone to hold, cuddle, or love. I was just a girl named Lily to James, and nothing more. He liked me as he liked Sirius... in an arguably pure fashion, devoid of romantic notion altogether. The inside of my mouth tasted bitter as I thought of it.

            The boys started trying to make their way out of the stands amid the hustle and bustle of all the moving, muttering bodies, so I stood up and stuck with them. If I lost them in this crowd, I wouldn’t be able to find them until we got back to the Gryffindor tower at best. Even though the realization that I liked James and that he didn’t like me back had depressed me, I wasn’t the type of girl that let silly things like that ruin her day—or her friendships—and I felt like sticking with them, at least for a little while longer. The day would be a celebratory one, I was sure, for the Marauders seemed to favor any Quidditch team that won any match, aside from Slytherin, of course. Because Ravenclaw had beaten out Hufflepuff, the boys were bound to be in a wonderfully contagious good mood... though, come to think of it, they probably would’ve been equally happy if Hufflepuff’s seeker had caught the snitch instead.

            After about ten minutes of fierce jostling, the three of us (me trailing a footstep or two behind), had made our way down to ground level once again. James and Sirius were animatedly recounting the match to each other and how they would’ve improved it, if they had been the ones playing instead of the book-worm-y Ravenclaws. Sirius boasted about his broomstick while James chattered away about his new idea—from what I could discern it was something about the patterns they all flew in during the game. Normally I would’ve joined in and explained my own two cents, for I did dearly love Quidditch with all of my heart, but my attention was focused mainly elsewhere.

            A little way off, not more than thirty yards at most, Lucius Malfoy stood straight and tall. His back was facing us, but not for long I was sure, judging by the expression Severus Snape had on his face and the way the little snake was eyeing me. He was looking peculiarly at James and Sirius in particular, and then his little eyes darted to me, trying to pierce me with their blackness. Lucius visibly stiffened, but to maintain composure, allowed us to get at least ten yards closer before eloquently turning around. His face was almost unreadable, but his eyes gave him away. He was angry, I could tell, and angry at _me_ to boot. I froze, suddenly absolutely petrified, but James and Sirius took no notice of my strange behavior and continued to walk, still engrossed in their conversation. Lucius never took his eyes off of me.

            The boys had reached the Slytherins by now, and made a move to walk around them without even really noticing their presence. When engrossed in Quidditch talk, not even Severus Snape could dissuade them, but Lucius had other plans. He drew his wand out from his robes, and before I could even begin to run toward him to stop him, he had bellowed an advanced curse that I knew must’ve been borderline dark magic. My Mage senses exploded, and I was almost made sick by the stench of the Dark Arts... or something close to it, anyway. It smelled like a mixture of rotten eggs and rotting trash, combined with something sickly... like old lady’s perfume.

            I was sure James was being assaulted with the stench just as I was, and though the curse was fairly unfamiliar to us since we hadn’t gone for the Dark Arts mage yet, I was sure that whatever this magic Lucius was using was, it was bad. I rushed forward toward the four boys. They were seemingly unnoticed by any adults in the chaos that always ensued after a Quidditch match, and I fervently wished at that moment that I had had all of my rings on. I was outraged, afraid, and confused, but I swallowed all these rushing feelings and tried to think clearly. Thinking clearly was something any Mage had to be able to do, for in the event of a crisis—by definition, a crisis being something a lot more serious than this—Mages had to be able to function correctly and quickly.

            I mentally reached out to my healing ring, the smallest of all that I must never take off, and it grew warm on my pinky. It felt like a sort of syrupy substance was being released into my body, cool and somewhat gel-like. This magic—for magic was what it was—coursed through my veins and instantaneously I was on a higher level than anyone else present. James was doubled over, retching dryly, and therefore probably hadn’t had the time or energy to defend himself yet. It was then that I fully appreciated how vulnerable we all were, even James and I, because even with these Magelets we were still only human. If we were not alert, if we were not prepared... it could mean death out in the field. I quickly shouted out a spell to freeze the affects of Lucius’s curse, enjoying the tingly feeling the words brought to my tongue.

            "Aereolis tolaritim!" did the trick, and then, as an afterthought, I put a temporary stopper on the Slytherins’ magical abilities with "Mageolor discontinueus!". I reached up, furiously calm, and slapped Lucius as hard as I possibly could across the face. He reached to catch my wrist, my acute senses were revved up abnormally with Helper’s guidance, and I darted around his hand easily. The sickening crack of skin meeting skin was the only thing I heard, the resistance and the heaviness of Lucius’s head the only thing I felt. James was getting up, Sirius was helping him, and Severus Snape was waving his wand to and fro, gasping as he realized none of his attack spells were working.

            "What the hell is your problem?!" I spat out, glaring daggers at Lucius, my calm abating. Helper’s power was slithering back into the ring from my veins, I could tell, but that was of no consequence. It had helped me just like it was supposed to. With more practice, I could use it for longer and master it with more skill. Just because I passed the test and knew the text book way to handle the rings did not mean that I was at all used to the actual magic they lent me.

            Lucius’s eyes bulged, shocked that I had slapped him, and even more shocked at the power I had wielded at him. "My problem is you," he said coldly, furiously, backing up towards Severus. "What the hell did you do to our magic? I feel different. You did something. What the hell did you _do_?"

            "She took away your magic," James frowned, standing up and wiping the spit away from his mouth. "Why did you attack me? What’s your deal, Malfoy? Snape?"

            "What are you playing at, attacking people randomly and from behind like that?" Sirius spluttered, seemingly angrier at the attack than James and I were combined.

            "You stay away from Lily, you filthy blood traitors," Lucius said, clenching his fists at his sides. He said it coolly, quietly, and with a thousand underlying threats. His voice was laced with sickening malice, and I stood and stared at him in disbelief. He had treated me like I was nothing to him... absolutely nothing. What right did he have to dictate who I could and could not hang around with? What right did he have at all?

            "And what are you going to do if I don’t stay away?" James asked vehemently, also clenching his fists. His eyes were locked with Lucius’s, and the two of them seemed unaware of me and my exclamations of "STOP". Sirius, seeing the tension and anticipating what was about to happen, checked around for any teachers before going to stand intimidatingly near Snape. Severus let out a small, pathetic whimper in the presence of Sirius... for Sirius certainly was about four inches taller than him.

            "I will make your life a living hell, Potter," was Lucius’s reply to James’s question, and he took a step closer.

            "With what? Lily took away your magic. Are you deaf? Do you not listen? Don’t you feel it? It’s gone."

            I knew that James was partially bluffing to scare Lucius into backing down, because he understood as well as I did that spells to take away people’s magic were not reliable and rarely lasted long. In combat, it was definitely not something to rely on in any case. Most of the time it didn’t even work on full grown wizards and witches. It had only worked on Lucius because he was a student, and still—despite all his knowledge of the Dark Arts—only fifteen-years-old. Nevertheless, James took a step forward as well.

            "I’ll beat you to a pulp with my bare fists, then," Lucius said, his temper obviously getting the better of him. Back in those days he didn’t yet have the nerves of steel he would become known for in the future. Back in those days, he was merely very good at hiding his feelings. He took another step towards James, and James took one more too. They were almost pressed up against each other, each boy breathing hard, trying to stare the other one down.

            "Quit it!" I shouted, blinking feverishly, "James, let it go! Let me deal with him. Let’s go back to the common room, James. Come on. Come _on,_ stop it. Lucius, stop! _STOP_!"

            "I’m not going to let this loser ruin your life, Lily!" Lucius shouted angrily at me.

            "I can _take_ him," James insisted, an entrancing tone to his voice.

            "No!" I shouted again, but it was too late. Lucius’s fist had met James’s cheek bone... a dizzying blow that made me wince just to look at it. But James was no pushover. He was balanced again in an instant and punched Lucius in the nose. Lucius tried to move out of the way, so the fist ended up getting him in the eye.

            "Get him, James!" Sirius whooped, and then punched Snape in the stomach for good measure.

            I watched in horror as the two sex symbols of Hogwarts fought—fought over me... James, darkly handsome with his dizzy eyes and dark black, insane hair... Lucius with his crystal grayish blue eyes and his blonde perfection... Fire and ice, passion and apathy, right and wrong... were swinging at each other, hitting deftly and soundly, sickening sounds coming from the sound of flesh against flesh...

            Then Lucius’s magic had returned, and he had his wand, and he was cursing James with every dark curse he knew. James was quick, smart, and a Mage... but Lucius was just so _fast_. Little drops of blood sprayed everywhere, as cuts... almost some schoolboy form of stigmata... exploded on James’s shoulders. His robes were torn, and the places where there should’ve been the soft tan skin of his chest, there were bloody sores, bleeding, bleeding, bleeding... James was fighting back, but I didn’t care what happened to Lucius, didn’t _care_ that James was probably holding his own anyway. I just saw the blood, saw the bloody cuts on James, and remembered the same kind of cuts all over my arms and wrists....

I tilted my head back and began to scream. _Scream, scream, scream my little pretty one, my little scream machine, my little hate machine, scream..._ I screamed and screamed and screamed, trying to get the sound of the punches out of my head, trying to clear my mind of the blood. I kept screaming for what felt like eternity; kept screaming until someone was grabbing me, hauling me away from the fight... Strong arms, adult arms. Teacher’s arms. Headmaster’s arms. Headmaster Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall were tearing Lucius and James from each other, prying them loose from their hideous dance of sweat and pain.

            Angry tears streaked down my face. I was angry, _so angry_ , at Lucius. I looked at James and he was still bleeding... his face was already beginning to discolor. Both boys swayed, laying back on the soft grass, grimaces on both of their faces. "James, James!" I screamed, over and over again, fighting some other teacher—I wasn’t sure who and it didn’t matter—trying to break free to run over to him and heal him and stop the blood. "I can heal him, I can heal him!" I shouted, angrily brushing away my tears, kicking and scratching at the professor that held me. "He can heal himself! I can heal him!" I insisted, sobbing now, as I realized that he was unconscious. Unconscious, and there were cuts all over his body, his precious body... Where had Lucius learned that? Damn him, damn him, damn him... Damn all the Malfoys, all the Malfoys currently alive and all the ones undoubtedly to come! Damn them all to hell, damn them, damn them to the ends of eternity...

            A seventh year student—the Head Boy--had James hanging limply in his arms, and they were carrying him off toward the Hospital Wing. Madame Pomfrey was bustling alongside Lucius, waving her wand and working her magic on him, and not James. _Oh, James! WHY DID YOU FIGHT HIM? WHY DID YOU BLEED?_

            I was choking, sobbing without breathing, shaking and screaming with my anger and fear that James was seriously hurt. "Let go of me, damn it!" I said, arching my foot up to hurt the professor—whoever he was—to the best of my ability. Sirius, also being held by a professor, looked frantically at me... wildly at me. I turned my glistening face away from him and pushed with all my might, calling again on Helper for extra strength. I was free, unshackled, and running after the lively procession that carried James and Lucius, and on closer inspection, Snape as well.

            I ran to the Head Boy, the one holding James, and kicked him as hard as I could in the shin. He tripped over my leg more so than he tripped because of the force of the kick, but tripped nonetheless. I moved James swiftly to the ground, and was down on my knees, summoning the powers of healing in the only other ring I happened to be wearing, before anyone else could even begin to react. I spread my hands all over him, all over his precious body, so stained and dirtied with his own dear blood... A blue light, the same blue light he had healed my scars with, came from my hands as I muttered the healing spell. His cuts immediately began to seal themselves... seal themselves, heal... his flawless skin was flawless again, though dirty, dirty, dirty from the blood. I moved my hands as deftly and as carefully as I could over his entire body, and perhaps because of my tense posture or my pitiful tears, no one grabbed me and moved me away from him this time.

            When I was done, I let out a choked cry, and wrapped my arms around him, hugging him as close to me as I could. I _liked_ James Potter, I really liked him, and the fact that Lucius had tried to hurt him... No one was allowed to hurt James. James was absolutely wonderful, and how dare anyone try to lay a finger on him? How dare they?

            The world began to spin as I clung to him, and for awhile I just lay there, oblivious to the muttering crowd or the distressed teachers. Finally someone—Headmaster Dumbledore I believe—suggested we both be escorted to the hospital wing together. James was blearily trying to open his eyes, but you could tell he still hurt immensely. I buried my face into his chest, but allowed the Head Boy to pick him up again. I walked with the procession without a single comment, sniffling something terrible, and as soon as they put James on the hospital bed (one far away from Lucius, thankfully), and as soon as Madame Pomfrey had given him medicine and cleaned him up, I swung myself onto the bed with him, too.

            Madame Pomfrey tried to protest, but I gave her the fiercest little glare that I could, and after a whispered suggestion from McGonagall, I was allowed to stay. Dumbledore was lecturing briefly, but no one, for once, was paying very much attention. I lay my head by James’s neck, and pressed my nose into his shoulder. He had bled, and that had scared me so tremendously... He had _bled_.

            But then I was asleep, sleeping without dreaming, and the confusion and the hurt and the anger all faded away into oblivion. For awhile, at least.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & &

            I woke up the next morning to find James propped up on his pillows, laughing over something Remus had apparently just said. I sat up quickly as soon as I realized that the rest of the Marauders were present, feeling slightly embarrassed at my current position. _I was in bed with James Potter, snuggled up against him like some ridiculous child..._

            "Ah, she awakes," Sirius smiled.

            James laughed. "Lily," he said, "thank you for rescuing me."

            "And it was so nice," Remus raised his eyebrows, "for you to spend the night with dear James as well."

            "Very nice indeed," said Peter with a smirk, and I blushed so deeply that my cheeks certainly rivaled my hair. I climbed out of the hospital bed quickly and sunk into the nearest chair, but all the boys were laughing good-naturedly at me anyway.

            "Shut up," I frowned uncomfortably, crossing my arms and tucking my legs up under me. "I was worried."

            "I know you were," James said seriously, "and I really mean it. Thank you. No one’s ever worried about me that much before, and I know you healed me too. That was dumb of me though, I didn’t even think to use any of my Mage powers during the fight at all. Guess I’m just not used to them yet. I’m glad you were around, Lily. Really."

            "Yeah, I was pretty freaked out ,too," Sirius admitted, slightly cocking his head to one side. "All those cuts? What the hell was Malfoy playing at? It looked really bad."

            "It felt pretty bad too," James added with a grin.

            "Well," Remus said, standing up, "Sirius and Peter and I were just leaving anyway. We have to go to class. I guess you two are excused for the day, according to Professor McGonagall... but we’ll be back later. Won’t we, guys?"

            "Yeah," Peter said.

            "Definitely," Sirius laughed, and then they made their way loudly out.

            As soon as they were gone, James swung his legs over the side of the bed and yawned. His back was to me, and he looked so good sitting there, the back of his neck so prettily slender and lovely... I wanted to reach out and touch it, but I didn’t. I was already very embarrassed at having spent the night in the same bed with him, and even more embarrassed that I had freaked out so much the day before. The details were slightly blurred now, but I was sure I had overreacted. Just a tad, anyway.

            He stood up and turned around to face me. "Why don’t you just let me go get changed, and then we can go raid the kitchens for some food or something, alright? I think we missed breakfast, but I can leave now. Malfoy left an hour ago."

            "Alright," I said, still nestled in my chair, unmoving. I watched as he slid into the hospital bathroom, and let out a small sigh as he shut the door. I felt dull inside from all of previous excitement, and tired. My eyelids were heavy with longing for more slumber, but I didn’t want to go back to sleep. I wanted to spend more time with James. _His body smells good. Like soap and sunshine. His smell is dizzy, just like his eyes... Dizzy hazel and gold and sparkling stars and bursts of brilliant fireworks, spinning, spinning, dancing, twirling..._

            After he’d washed and dressed, and then after I’d taken my turn doing the same, we walked companionably back to the Gryffindor tower to retrieve the Marauder’s Map. I felt so connected to him, so very in touch and in tune with his feelings, that I felt less like my imperfect self and more like him...

            I liked James Potter, and though I wasn’t sure what was going to come of my crush—or if anything would ‘come of it’ at all—I was very content to just live in the moment and play it by ear. Something had happened the day before during that confusing fight that had made me even closer to him. I vaguely wondered how we would be punished, but that didn’t matter today, so the thought quickly slipped through my mind. I was going to breakfast with James, and we were going to eat sausage and toast and bond.

            With a smile, I was complete.

 

 

& & & & & & & & & & &

 

Author's Note: Bah. Review! :( 

 


	13. Murdering Lost Love

**Deconstruct, a Memoir**

By Solarism

_Chapter Twelve—Murdering Lost Love_

{This chapter’s song is “Color Blind” by the Counting Crows.}

 

 

 

The murders were always frequent, always bombarding the headlines of The Daily Prophet, and always accompanied by little to no accurate or useful information. When I was fifteen years old the world was a dangerous place to grow up in for everyone, but most especially for people like me—Muggle-born people like me—and one of the most frustrating things about the killings was that very little information was being released to the general public for a long period of time. The Ministry, whether because they did not think it sensible to give out details or whether because they simply did not know for sure themselves, would never give any definite answers or even make any assumptions as to why or how or when the next gruesome acts of terror would take place, or how they would go about stopping them in the future. Articles on the latest mass murders sometimes took up whole pages of The Prophet, but it wasn’t easy to discern any real reporting amid the muddle and confusion and the horror.

Even though I knew that I was safe as long as I was at Hogwarts, I knew that I was also doubly a target because of the conditions of my birth and because I was a Mage, which was certainly unsettling. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it secretly scared me right down to my bones each time I picked up the newspaper and read the new headlines, because I could easily imagine myself dead, too. I wondered if when the summertime came again I would be hunted down like so many countless other witches and wizards had been, hunted down and murdered because of a terrible hate, a terrible prejudice against all who were not pure-blooded magical beings. When I saw the headlines that proclaimed an Auror had been murdered, too, that an Auror’s body had been discovered dismembered hours after communications had gone dead... that scared me doubly so.

The Dark Lord, for that was what he would have himself called, I knew almost nothing about... except that he was powerful and that he was very, very evil. I hated him with all the fervency that I could, but I was very much in the dark my fifth year, for no one really knew what was happening or how to stop it. He and his terrible followers were like the plague, pouring down upon us to (in their minds) cleanse the world of all the litter... of all the trash. I was trash to them, a meaningless existence just dirtying the world of wizardry with my very presence. Every time another Muggle-born was killed, a hot hatred rose up within me seemingly from my very soul. I could feel deep inside of me that these murders were disgusting and wrong and ghastly. My whole reason for being seemed grossly violated and my stomach sunk and bile rose to the back of my throat every time I saw a picture of someone—someone just like me—lying still, lying dead.

I wouldn’t learn this until much later after the confusion cleared, but I feel that I should mention here and now that Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters did not just kill with the killing curse. It is to this day a common misconception that this was their preferred method of murdering, but because I grew up in it and learned it all first hand and also because I later worked closely with the Ministry for the sole purpose of knowing these things, I can safely say that this is not so. In fact, whenever they could, evidence proves that the Death Eaters would brutally and savagely destroy the helpless bodies of their victims as well, usually before they killed them so that the victim would have to feel agony for the last few hours of their lives. These horrible, evil murderers actually enjoyed the pain they caused... they reveled in it and tried to inflict as much of as they could, whenever they could. Of course, more often than not, they simply did not have enough time to shred the victims’ bodies, which is probably how the misconception first arose. But, I know different. I know different...

Another unsettling thought that was becoming increasingly more apparent in the back of my mind was that the Slytherins of Hogwarts seemed not to be bothered by the murders _at all_. Some of them, of course, did seem rightly terrified as were the rest of the houses... but a vast majority of the students in Slytherin did not seem even remotely fazed. Some, most prominently of all Lucius Malfoy, even had the audacity to boast or joke about the killings as if it were some sick kind of childish game they were cleverly winning at. Glances were thrown and whispers were uttered that made it seem like they were all sharing a private joke at the expense of the rest of us. Their faces--I will _never_ forget their faces--were smug. The only time when Lucius himself ever looked slightly uncomfortable was when I would catch his eye. Then he would shift his gaze, move away, or just pretend like he didn’t see me looking at him. I stowed this in the back of my mind, but did not say a word. What was there to say, anyway? Nothing I could think of, though perhaps I should’ve when I had the chance...

However, there was in fact an upside to being fifteen. I was growing into myself, getting taller as well as curvier, and developing as all young women are eventually prone to doing. Maintaining high marks in all of my classes was really my main concern, closely followed by getting Arabella to join me in my new friendship with the Marauders, so I just tucked my newspaper clippings of horror away under my bed and tried not to think about them too much. When you’re a teenager and safely nestled away inside the most secure location in the entire world, it’s easy to put the bad out of your mind and focus on the good. Those who don’t go crazy in the end anyway, and I did not want to be insane, so I substituted bloody gore for sparkling, dancing, dizzy eyes and sobbing misery for sweet laughter.

Of course, I also had my inner-struggles to deal with and sort out as well, make no mistake. First and foremost, I was still doing my gambling nights. Every Saturday night without fail I entertained sin with a plastic smile and plenty of eyeliner. Narcissa—the lovely, sweet Slytherin with the cold eyes and the unsettling nature (now that I thought about it)—still served dry martinis and little shot glasses of gin to anyone eleven years of age or older. Arabella and I, arm in arm, still made sure things ran as smooth as a drop of wine and still sat on boys’ laps and made them feel like they were Mr. Number One, Someone Special, and even Pretty Cute should they so indicate they wanted us to. The problem was that I did need the money these gambling nights brought in, or else fail to return to Hogwarts for my sixth and seventh years, but at the same time I began to feel slightly bothered by what I was doing.

The downside—or really the upside, I suppose—of hanging out with James was that you developed something of a conscience. I think the only reason (aside from the need of money) that I didn’t just quit with them altogether was that Sirius still came most of the time and that made things semi-justified. Just semi, but still.

One thing I did know for sure was that no matter what I did, the presence of evil could never leave the back of my mind. I could never purge the uneasy feeling that followed me wherever I went. It was like something bad was going to happen very, very soon, and I felt absolutely powerless to stop it.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & &

Lucius was eating breakfast and I was watching him from across the Great Hall, biting my lip and examining the way he held his spoon. We were alone in the huge room. Everyone else was still tucked safe and asleep in their beds, but Lucius and I were up early. Actually, I don’t think either of us had even slept. I know I sure hadn’t.

His silvery blonde hair was getting long now, and he was making quite a good attempt at hiding his entire person under it. His face was pressed so close to his cereal bowl that I was surprised he needed to use a spoon at all. Another fraction of an inch and he could have just slurped it up, but of course he had always been too dignified for that. No, he was so much of a man that he’d rather skulk and pout than slurp his cereal. Because Heaven forbid he ever look childish.

I got up slowly and pushed my wooden chair back into the table. It scraped against the floor and though he hadn’t moved an inch, I knew that Lucius had stopped eating and that he was quite possibly holding his breath. He could hear me walking toward him. I swallowed, my stomach feeling empty despite the breakfast I’d just consumed, and made my way to the Slytherin table. My mind was devoid of thought as I neared him, the boy who had just viciously beaten up the boy I liked a week ago, the boy who I had once kissed beneath a beautifully leafed tree.

I pulled out the chair directly across from him and sat down, not saying a word. Just walking across the room and sitting down at his table had metaphorically bridged a hideous gap in our fucked up schoolboy and schoolgirl society, but I felt very foolish nonetheless. For some reason there was a lump in my throat as I looked at him, and it slowly began to consume me as he tilted his head up to mine.

"Hello, Lily," he said, his whole face a work of stone and his voice as flat as anything. His lips were pale and tight and there was no friendly light in his beautiful gray eyes for me today.

"Hell... hello," I murmured, faltering.

He set down his spoon in his cereal bowl, pushed it away from him, and folded his arms on the table, waiting.

I searched for something to say but found nothing worth the time. "How are you doing?" I asked, finally, after an awkward pause.

He blinked at me and didn’t reply.

"You’re right, I _do_ know the answer to that and I’m sorry."

"For what?"

"For knowing the answer, I guess."

"No, I mean, _for what_? For breaking my heart and humiliating me in front of everyone I know or for throwing your life away on James Potter?"

"I never meant to hurt you, Lucius, you know that. You know I never set out to have things end up like they are now. You’ve got to know that."

"Stop it. I don’t want to hear your explanations. Just shut up."

"Lucius..."

"SHUT UP, LILY!" he yelled suddenly, pinching his eyes shut tight and looking away from me for a minute. I did shut up, shocked at the strain in his face, and waited for his hands to stop trembling before I began again.

Softly this time, "Lucius."

"What? Fucking what, Lily?"

"Lucius, I’m sorry... I am so sorry." I wanted to reach out and touch him, but I knew that that was impossible. The way he looked at me just simply broke my heart.

"God," he said quietly and with a shudder, "don’t you know that he will never love you like I do?" Before I could say a word, he pushed his chair back roughly and walked quickly to the nearest exit. The clatter of his chair hitting the ground echoed throughout the Great Hall, and by the time that I looked up from the noise, Lucius was gone.

The lump in my throat welled over into a burst of tears, and I crumpled onto the Slytherin table, crying for a long time. I cried for him, for me, and for the miserable state of our situation. And for the fact that maybe he was right. Maybe James would never love me like he did. But one thing was clear: I could never love Lucius back. And that broke me down.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

James and I were sitting in the common room with a huge pile of books, choosing to study rather than sleep as everyone else did after the big Halloween feast. We sat back to back, pressed up against each other on the floor, reading. His book was about lycanthropes and mine was about love spells. ‘For the Dark Arts Magelet’ we’d told each other, but I had other things on my mind and clearly so did he.

I was in the mood, after my encounter with Lucius, to read the closest thing I could find to a trashy romance novel on the Hogwarts grounds. It sort of made me feel better for some reason to read about how dangerous love is and why love potions were made illegal. I assumed James, on the other hand, just liked to read about vicious, bloodthirsty monsters. I left it at that.

"Have you ever read Milton’s Paradise Lost?" he asked me suddenly, stirring from his comatose position to turn and face me.

"Paradise Lost. Yes, I believe so. I liked it. It was beautiful."

"It’s Biblical."

"But beautiful."

"So, religion can be beautiful. You think?"

"Sure. I mean, of course. I may be an atheist, but that doesn’t mean I’m against having spirituality. You know that,” I said.

"I know. It’s just that I’ve been thinking lately and it seems to me that the oddest things can turn out to be okay. Like fist fighting. I’m normally sort of against that, but I must admit, that was some great fun right there," he grinned at me. I laughed and slapped him lightly on the shoulder, but felt uneasy somewhere in the pit of my stomach. Fighting. Blood. I remembered all too well.

"What’s all this have to do with Paradise Lost?" I asked.

"Oh, nothing. It was just an example."

"Oh."

"Lily."

"James."

"Would you like to borrow my copy sometime? I write in the margins so it’s sort of messy, but there’s everything that I thought about while reading it in there. There’s still some space left, so I guess it’s not too bad."

"Sure," I smiled, "I would love to."

"Good," he smiled back and closed his lycanthrope book. "I’ll go and get it later and drop it off at your room."

"Okay, thanks... thanks."

"No problem," he said, tossing me one of those dizzy-eyed looks. _His eyes are like dancing over air and caramel colored kisses and floating arm in arm, twisting, turning, writhing with the pure delight of life... dizzy, like copper, like gold, like brown, like green, like blue, like so many different sorts of blended hazel, like dancing in a pair of strong arms in the middle of thin air..._

"James?"

"Lily?"

"Are you a good dancer?"

He thought a moment. "Good enough, I guess."

"Oh..." I paused, thinking.

"I’ll prove it sometime."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, I think I’d like that."

"Alright," he said, standing up. "I’m going to dance the night away with you, right now. Come on."

"What?" I blinked. "Right now?"

"Yeah, right now. Stand up."

I let my book slip from my fingers and did as he said. I smoothed my hair down, looked at him, and almost swallowed my tongue. I _liked_ James Potter. Oh my God, oh my God.

Without saying a word, he leapt the distance between us with two steps and placed his hands firmly on my waist. _James Potter is touching me. Dizzy, oh my God, oh my fucking God, he’s warm and close and just about kissable, oh my God, feel his hands, fragile, large, safe... Hold me, hold me, don’t let me go, dance... Dance your brilliance into me, darling, do anything but let go... don’t let me go…._

"You’re too thin," he laughed, giving my side a playful flick. "Eat more."

I ignored his comments, recognizing them to be truthful, and put my hands lightly around his neck. Our faces, eyes, lips were less than six inches apart. And then he moved closer. I held onto him tighter and even without any music, he began to move.

Dancing with James was like everything I had always imagined it to be and so much more. He moved like liquid, and for awhile that Halloween night I experienced what it was like to be so lithe. I understood now how he was such a wonderful Quidditch chaser. Even on the ground he seemed to float. Flying must have been such a pleasure for him. I loved the game dearly myself, but I began to realize that for him it had to be quite violently different. The way he moved was so graceful, so careful without being twitchy, that it made my heart pound. _He_ made my heart pound.

Softly, I provided the music by singing in his ear. "I am colorblind, coffee black and egg white. Pull me out from inside. I am ready, I am ready, I am ready, I am... fine... I am..."

His dance adjusted to the tone of my song, so I continued. "Taffy stuck and tongue tied, stutter shook and uptight. Pull me out from inside. I am ready, I am ready, I am ready, I am fine..."

On impulse, I closed the last gap between us and pressed my cheek up against his. He didn’t move, and my heart started pounding harder. I could hear him breathing. "I am covered in skin, no one gets to come in, pull me out from inside... I am folded, and unfolded, and unfolding... Pull me out from inside. I am colorblind, coffee black and egg white. Pull me out from inside..."

Before I could finish, he pulled back and suddenly we weren’t moving anymore. His face had an odd expression on it that I couldn’t quite place, but it didn’t match the one of sheer happiness on mine. I dropped my hands to my side and for a few seconds that felt like forever, he stared at me like he’d never seen me before. Like he didn’t know who I was or where we were or why we’d been dancing only a moment before.

"I think I’m going to go and get you that book now," James said slowly.

"Alright," was all I could say, the smile quickly disappearing from my lips.

He frowned hard at me and then walked to the boys’ staircase. I let out a sigh that I thought was inaudible, but nevertheless on the third step he turned around. He opened his mouth once, seemed to think the better of it, and shut it again. A step later, it was open again, and he called over his shoulder to me. "Thank you for the dance, Lily. You’re pretty good. I guess we Prefects really are perfect in every way, huh? Anyway, happy Halloween. You’re really great."

And then, without another word, he left.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

Author’s Note: A chapter I didn’t cringe at! Huzzah! Please do review, and if you can, listen to Colorblind as you read the dance scene. It sets the mood so much better—always has, always will.

 


	14. Banisters

** Deconstruct, a Memoir **

By Solarism

_ Chapter Thirteen—Banisters _

 {This chapter’s song is: What’s My Age Again? by Blink182.}

            Some boys piss you off, some boys make you think, some boys take your breath away, and some make you cry. When you first meet one there’s really no telling under which of the four categories he’s going to fit into, or for that matter if he’ll actually end up fitting into all of them. I think that’s the fun of it, the hopelessness of it, and the niceness about it at all at the same time. Here’s to boys: for the ones we used to know, the ones we currently know now, and the ones we will know in the future; for the ones we’ll love and the ones we’ll hate; for the ones who will hurt us and the ones that we will hurt in return; for the boys that made us who we are today and for the ones who are still shaping us currently; for the ones we’ll remember on our deathbeds, forever and a day.

            Here’s to James Potter, Lucius Malfoy, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Severus Snape, and Peter Pettigrew. The boys that I loved, hated, admired, knew, annoyed, and fought with. Even though things eventually turned out very differently than I’d ever expected them to, all six of them took part in my childhood in some way or another. They are all a part of me to this day, tenderly tucked away in memory.

            I remember vividly the Marauders in all their towering glory. Everything— _everything_ —was all in good fun to them, from pulling pranks on other students for the sake of promoting a healthy rivalry between the houses to collecting detentions from teacher after teacher just to see how many they could get by the end of the year. In fifth year James and I were Prefects, and as we went to the meetings and took on all of the extra responsibilities that were so entailed, I sort of thought that he would tone down his role in the Fabulous Foursome... at least for awhile.

            Somehow though, miraculously, he managed to stick sharply to his duties as well as his pranks and slew of detentions. I know it sounds completely contradictory, but for every time he got in trouble there was another time when he did his duties. Everything seemed to balance out in one way or another, but even so, I was dazzled by the way he could flirt with disaster so carelessly. He danced his way through sticky situations and flawlessly recovered from dizzying reprimands, always laughing, always finding the fun in it. Our professors never knew what to do when he and Sirius, side by side always, would burst out laughing in the middle of their harsh lectures. Most of the time, confused, they would begin to laugh too and forget to be mad altogether.

            The Marauders had this way of bringing out the best in everyone, friend or foe, in some way or another. James and Sirius were the masterminds, orchestrating every breaking of the rules with loving care, talking fast and running faster, joking, playing, laughing the loudest and always happy, their eyes sparkling with the fire of life that ran so warmly through their veins. Remus was their intellectual database, a stronghold of data and memory unendless. He aided his friends with ferocious loyalty and took active part in their silly adventures. He tied everything together with his blessing, for the other three would not dare do anything without Remus’s consent. Peter, the last and the meekest, was a constant sort of joy bringer. Though I wasn’t entirely close to him in fifth year, the initial feeling of dislike for him vanished as I watched him with the other three. He clearly belonged with them, whatever reservations I personally had.

            They were undeniably amazing.

            But, there was a flipside.

            Two boys named Lucius Malfoy and Severus Snape.

            Lucius was not flagrant. He preferred to break the rules quietly, coldly, and much more professionally. However, he was not perfect. Sometimes I would stumble on him carting whiskey by the barrel into his secret stash of a deserted classroom, and the Prefect badge on my robes made him blink. I would blink back, nod briefly, and continue on my way. After all, I was the only one who ever seemed to catch him in the act. And besides, my gambling nights were if anything worse... I let him fly under the radar purposely. Maybe this was a bad thing. Maybe this taught him that he was above the law and that he could get away with things that normal people couldn’t. Reflecting, I’m not quite sure what it was that finally molded Lucius into whom he turned out to be, but I can’t help but feel I took part in it. But what the hell was I supposed to do? I was as bad as he was, if not worse. There was nothing I could say to stop him. But that bothered me.

            Severus Snape was quite possibly Lucius’s best friend at school, and if anything more an enemy to the Marauders than Lucius himself. He was the slimy kid, always very good in Potions, sickeningly sweet to me on the outside but undoubtedly muttering up a curse the second I turned the corner... An odd one, he never mattered very much to me until the middle of sixth year. Before then, I had always regarded him as just another Slytherin who I instinctively didn’t like. As a walking example of the Marauders and their ingenious pranking skills, as a member of my gambling nights, as a boy with frightening potential... Soon, though, he would have a part to play in my life too. Just not now. We haven’t reached the Blackening Point yet. But we will. Oh, God, we will...

            No matter, no matter at all.

            These boys, they shaped me. They made my whole world.

            And then they crumbled it.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & &

            November passed in a blur, and on the last day of the month it began to snow for the first time that school year. Arabella and I were naturally delighted. We loved the snow. We sat on the windowsill now, gazing out at it, hopelessly infatuated and thinking of nothing other than the infinite flakes. Such days were the epitome of life education for us, and we did not take them for granted.

            Bundled up in our winter finest, we waded our way through the sea of students in the hallways, as merry as children going out for a midsummer picnic. Arm in arm, Arabella and I were the most similar that we could ever be. Her, with her lusty black hair and seductive eyes that undressed you at every turn, and me, with my long and pretty red locks and piercing emerald eyes—eyes that were both perceptive and inquisitive, eyes that drove the boys wild. The twisted, slightly secretive smiles we wore were identical; the Hogwarts school clothes hung the same way on both of our bodies; both of us took long-legged, comfortable steps; we were like sisters. We were better than sisters. We were best friends.

            We passed Sirius and Remus on our way down the hallway, and Arabella didn’t spare them a glance. I did, though. They were in the middle of a conversation, but as she and I passed, they stopped to watch us move. Sirius tilted his head in that ridiculous way of his, a vague smile forming on his deliciously handsome face, but I noticed with a little surprise that he was in fact staring at Aria—not at me, or at the people behind us. So Sirius Black liked Arabella Figg. An interesting turn of events _that_ certainly was.

            Remus clenched his books tighter to his chest as I winked at him and he returned the wink with a friendly smile. I opened my mouth to extend a verbal greeting, but Aria jerked me around the corner before I could say a word.

            "We don’t stray from the ones we already hold," she said austerely to me.

            "What are you talking about?" I frowned, slightly miffed she’d spoiled my hello.

            "Nevermind," Arabella sighed with a tone of impatience in her voice, "you’ll understand more when you’re older."

            "Oh, Aria, you act like you’re ancient."

            "That," she said resolutely, "is because I am."

            It was too wonderful of a day to argue with her, so I just let myself be guided out the prestigious Hogwarts doors and into the virgin snow. It was a white wonderland of lacy flakes, a uniqueness so unprecedented that the shivers going down my spine certainly were from something other than the cold.

            Promptly, I gathered a snowball in my hands and chucked it at Arabella with all of my might. As graceful as ever, she stepped lightly to the side and gave me a wicked grin.

            "We’re going to play that childish little game, are we?"

            "Sure," I grinned back, shooting her an ‘I’m-gonna-win’ look.

            With a smirk, she pulled her wand out from her robes and muttered a quick incantation. Before I could protest, ten snow balls pelted me with maximum force.

            "Oh my God, you bitch!" I laughed, spitting snow out of my mouth and wiping it out of my eyes. "No wands allowed!"

            She let out a pristine laugh of glee. "Of course wands are allowed. This is Hogwarts, darling."

            I blinked, pulled my wand out of robes, and pelted her with one huge ball.

            Arabella fell over, gasping for breath, and I let out a battle scream and hopped onto her. We battled for a bit in the snow, charming snow to attack each other, and rolled and rolled down the once-green hillsides. Going down a particularly steep slope, we stopped charming and held onto each other for dear life, cackling and breathing hard and praying to God that no one got in our way.

            Without dignity, tumbling as if no one in the world could see us, Aria and I made fools of ourselves. We couldn’t care less about our reputations in that snow—nothing could touch us. Finally reaching the bottom of the slope we stopped and sprawled out on the icy ground, giggling breathlessly, will to battle completely gone.

            "I loved that," I sighed with happiness, putting my hands over my face.

            "Me too," Arabella agreed, shooting me a playful glance.

            "What?" I raised an eyebrow, turning to face her with a grin.

            "You know who else would have loved it?"

            "Who?"

            "A certain Mr. James Potter and a certain Mr. Sirius Black."

            We both burst out laughing at the mental image of the boys tumbling down the hill with us, and collapsed into a worn out hug.

            "Friends forever," Arabella said.

            "Yes," I nodded, "friends _forever_."

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

            I was working on some research for the spell Sirius and Remus had commissioned me for earlier in the school year. They had asked me to perform a dangerous (and illegal) task that would render their brains branded with a permanent memory of the Marauder’s Map. I had agreed, knowing that it would put all of our lives on the line, but now that I was starting to study up on it, I wasn’t sure I’d made the right decision at all.

            I sat reading in the common room, puzzling over the complicated wrist twitches and mental power twists that were needed to complete everything successfully. The charm itself was called Cranianbind, and the actual spell was much more nasty sounding than the name. Although I was best in Charms and a Mage on the side, this looked absolutely foreboding even for me. Why had I gotten myself involved in this?

            The Cranianbind charm was made illegal by the Ministry of Magic in 1902 both because of its tricky and deadly nature and because simpler and less dangerous spells can be used in place of it with ease.

            Well, that certainly didn’t sound pleasant. It had a tricky and deadly nature. Besides, it said right there that other easier and less murderous spells could be used in its place. Why were the boys so very intent on using this one?

_ The performer of the spell more often than not muddles their wrist flicks and incantation pronunciations, thus either killing themselves or the other wizards and witches involved. The death rate actually became so ridiculously high in the late 19th century that wizards’ rights activists of the age actively protested against the use of the charm, claiming it to be inhumane. Former Minister of Magic Adolph Dinklebottom finally heeded the great pressure society was putting upon the Ministry to outlaw the charm, and made Cranianbind officially outlawed in the new century. In its place, Dinklebottom implemented several new charms to preserve memory instead, but most of them were held in high disdain by the more powerful of the wizarding public. _

_             The new spells require Occlumency talent, extremely rare and expensive ingredients for the vile potions that accompany them, and sometimes don’t even work. For these reasons, to this day many powerful witches and wizards use Cranianbind illegally to make sure that they get the thing done right. The Ministry hasn’t as of yet been able to stamp out the last illegal directions for the spell in existence, and general rumor is that there are still many copies of the charm sold in Dark Arts books published around the globe. Even though the spell itself isn’t considered Dark magic, nowadays it’s as good as if it was. _

            Oh, wonderful, so I was going to be researching something practically evil out of a Dark Arts book.  How fantastic. At least I supposed that explained why they wanted to use the charm—it was dangerous, illegal, difficult, and had been protested against in the past. Sounded just up the Marauders’ alley. I read on.

_             The Cranianbind charm, when successful, permanently implements a detailed and far-reaching memory in the brain of the person or people it is performed upon. If, for example, someone wished to always remember a certain tree, the Cranianbind charm could be performed and until the day the receiver of the spell died, he or she would always remember everything about said tree. _

_             It is a useful spell when properly applied, but should not be attempted under any circumstance. _

            "Lily?"

            My head snapped up, and I looked up to see Peter Pettigrew standing in front of me.

            "Oh God," I said, clutching at my chest for a moment, "you frightened me!"

            "I’m sorry," he frowned. When Peter frowned it made him look even more piteous because you could see that he had a double chin. I frowned back.

            "No big deal."

            "I was just wondering what you were doing down here so late. The fire’s almost gone out. Aren’t you going to bed?"

            I glanced at the fireplace and saw that he was right. "Oh, I hadn’t noticed it was so late. I’ve just been doing some studying and I guess I lost track of the time. It’s so quiet down here while everyone’s asleep. I got a bit swept away."

            "What were you studying?" he blinked, his pudgy face looking genuinely curious. He sat down in the high-backed arm chair across from me and waited for a reply.

            I bit my lip. Surely it would be alright to tell him, wouldn’t it? Peter was a Marauder and no doubt Sirius and Remus had clued him in. "I was studying up on Cranianbind. Sirius and Remus asked me to perform it on you and James and them at the end of the year so that the Marauder’s Map will always be safe in your memories. They’re worried about Severus Snape getting it confiscated or something, right?"

            Peter worked this over in his mind for a minute before replying. "I hadn’t heard anything about the use of any Cranianbind charm until right now. Isn’t that illegal?"

            "The spell? Well, yes. But Sirius and James and Remus are adamant about using it and they want me to do it for all of you. I thought you knew..."

            "No, I didn’t," Peter said with a trace of bitterness in his voice. I looked in his soft blue eyes and realized that he must have this feeling of resentment toward his friends a lot. It didn’t seem like they really went out of their way to include him much.

            "I’m sure they would have told you at some point," I said slowly, not knowing what to say to comfort this boy that I hardly knew—and up until very recently, had disliked.

            "Do you honestly think that that’s the way it works with them? If you do, you’re stupid. They wouldn’t have told me until the night before and then would’ve acted like it was my fault for not knowing beforehand. And then I would’ve been scared out of my wits, because it’s illegal and it kills people, doesn’t it? I’ve heard of it from my mother. She says my Gran protested it a long time ago."

            "That’s true, it does kill people when it’s not right. But I’m going to make sure I perform it perfectly." It was a bit awkward—surely if the other boys knew that Peter’s own grandmother had been one of the protestors they wouldn’t have chosen this charm at all. They wouldn’t have even thought about using it.

            Peter suddenly ducked his head into his hands and began to rock back and forth in his chair. Alarmed, I stood up.

            "Are you alright?" I asked, not sure what to do.

            "Hardly!" he moaned, and I could tell he was crying.

            "What’s the matter, Peter?"

            "They don’t care about me, they don’t care about me at all! Some friends, them. They only keep me around because I make them feel intelligent. Just because I’m not as clever as them, they think I’m stupid. I’m not stupid. I’m just as smart as they are! I don’t get things as fast, but I get them. I get them eventually, damn it, don’t I?" he sobbed into his hands, shaking violently. I stared.

            "Peter..."

            "God damn it!" he shouted so loud I thought he would wake everyone in Gryffindor Tower, and perhaps the whole castle as well.

           "Peter!"  
            He sat, crying into his fat little hands, his golden locks falling all around his flushed cheeks. I stood, rather in horror, watching him. After awhile of just listening to himself sob, he abruptly stopped, wiped his eyes, and sat up in his chair. His face was red and bloated from his crying and for a moment I had a maternal impulse to reach out and dry the last tears from his cheek. Before I could, he quietly thanked me for filling him in on the details, and walked out of the common room and out into the vast, dark, silent hallway.

            Thoughtfully, I picked up my books, and made my way to bed.

            This was an interesting twist for sure.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

            After the last class of the day on the 10th of December, James kidnapped me. We were walking out the door of the Transfiguration classroom when he wrapped his strong arms around my waist and whispered into my ear, "I’m going to take you away to places you’ve never been before this afternoon, and you’re going to love it. Don’t say a word."

            I shut my open mouth, spun around and flicked him on the chest, but let him guide me away from the door anyway. My heart was fluttering after hearing him speak those words. Was I finally going to get what I wanted after all this time?

As Sirius and Remus and Peter exited, James told them that neither of us would be back to the common room for awhile and to go ahead without us. They gave us a few eyebrow raises, and Sirius snickered a bit, but largely left us alone. As soon as their retreating backs disappeared, James let out a chuckle of merriment.

            "And now," he announced grandly, taking my arm, "I have you all to myself. We deserve a vacation from everyone else, don’t you think?"

            Shocked and quickly approaching giddy, I smiled my prettiest smile at him. "Sure we do. We work hard. Why not have an afternoon to ourselves?"

            He was going to kiss me. James Potter was going to lead me away to an empty classroom somewhere and ravish my brains out. Oh, God, just what I’d been hoping he would do for months now... Yes, yes, yes! Of course we could have a vacation from everyone else. Yes!

            Running a hand happily through his beautiful black hair, he gave me a coy look. He opened up his luscious mouth, parted his flushed and full lips in a secretive smile, and raised one of those dead sexy ebony eyebrows at me.

            "Have you," he said intimately, "ever slid down a banister before?"

            I blinked and took a step back.

            "Huh?" I asked, confused, my stomach dropping back down to normal. 100 miles per hour back to 0 in just 2.8 seconds. Nice.

            "Have you ever slid down a banister before?" he repeated, a boyish glint in his dizzy eyes.

            "Can’t say I have," I replied without much enthusiasm. God damn boy. Didn’t he have a libido at all? 

            "Then that’s what we’re going to do," he grinned, and before I could protest, he was walking me to the nearest staircase.

            "But what if it decides to move while we’re sliding down it?" I asked quickly, beginning to panic at the thought of all that velocity.

            "All the more fun that way," James assured me, and held out his hand to help me mount the polished oak banister. Wincing, I took it and gingerly sat down. I was genuinely afraid. He must’ve seen the look on my face because he said, "And this is the longest and safest staircase Hogwarts has. It rarely ever moves. It leads straight down to the Great Hall, in fact..."

            He sat down behind me, wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me close to his chest. I couldn’t even register that our bodies were skin tight against each other, and how absolutely titillating that was, before he was asking me whether or not I was ready yet.

            "No," I said, breathing hard in anticipation.

            "Good!" he laughed, and before I could protest any more, we were sliding down the banister, full speed ahead. I sucked in my breath, unable to scream but in sheer terror, and grinded my teeth together as hard as I possibly could.

            "Woohoo!" James whooped as we slid, down and down and down, curving round and round as the staircase did. Quick as a flash we passed a couple of first year Ravenclaws who gave us a horrified look, but I couldn’t feel bad. We were going too fast and soon their faces were a thing of the past, and we were racing, racing, ahead. James was holding me close, his chin was on my shoulder, and I knew he wouldn’t let go. My heart was doing frightened flip flops but my brain was saying ‘this is what living is all about, Lily’. And for once, I listened to my brain.

            This was what James stood for—this euphoria, this carelessness and fancy free feeling of love and happiness and life and thrill. He and the other boys preserved this and I realized wholly for the first time how very miserable things would have been for me if I had never met them.

            We neared the bottom and I shut my eyes, laughing now, completely entranced with the rushing fun of it all.

            And, as we slid off the end of the banister at last, we slammed into something very hard, very stern, and something with a feeling quite like that of our Transfiguration professor, Minerva McGonagall.

            "Uh oh," James said.

            "Uh oh is right Mr. Potter!" McGonagall shouted down angrily at us, hardly believing her eyes. "Detention! Both of you! Tonight at 6! Report to my office immediately! And twenty points from Gryffindor while you’re at it! ARGH!"

            James and I collapsed in a pool of giggles at her feet, and as she stomped off we had to lean on each other for support. Not sorry, not lamenting, but proud and glad and breathless from the recklessness of it all, we sat on the floor with each other, gasping.

            After I had somewhat regained my composure, I choked out with a peal of giggling, "You didn’t let go of me James!"

            "Of course I didn’t," he sucked in a huge breath and leaned his head onto my shoulder to stop himself from falling over completely, "I’m never going to let you go. Not ever, not now, not after all of this."

            "Thank you," I breathed, my eyes wild and unrelenting.

            "Are you happy, Lily?" he asked me.

            "Yes, James," I said with every ounce of truth in my body, "I am."

            On an impulse, I swooped my head down and gave him a peck on the crown of his head. He started laughing into my shoulder, so I laughed too, and ran my fingers through his wonderful black hair, thrilled with myself and positively glowing with fun.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

            We reported to our detention together. After a long and snippy lecture from Professor McGonagall concerning the responsibilities entailed in holding the title of Prefect, we were made to polish trophies in the trophy room along with the caretaker, Mr. Filch. When we were done, we took our time returning to the common room.

            "Someday I’m going to make sure I have a trophy with my name on it in there. You know, just to be ironic," James said with a playful look on his face. "It’ll amuse me that generations of troublemakers after us will have to polish my name to perfection, just like I always have had to polish people’s names who went to Hogwarts before me. It’ll be different. I’ll be the only person to serve such a detention and then have a trophy of my own added to that collection as well."

            "I’m sure you will," I smiled with warmth.

            "Lily," James said suddenly, stopping in his tracks and grabbing my hand.

            "James?"

            "Come to my house for the holidays again, won’t you?" he asked, pleadingly fluttering his eyelashes at me.

            "I would be honored, Mr. Potter," I said, and he nodded.

            "Come along then, Miss Evans. I shall walk you back to the Tower, as is every good gentleman’s duty."

            And he did.


	15. Christmas Caroling

**Deconstruct, a Memoir**

By Solarism

_Chapter Fourteen–Christmas Caroling_

{This chapter’s song is: Stellar by Incubus.}

As it turned out, both Sirius and I would be staying at James’s house for the Christmas holidays. The three of us took the Hogwarts Express along with Melissa to the train station where the Potter parents would be picking us up. On the ride, Sirius and James divulged to Melissa and me the makings of some new Marauder inventions–one of which I had apparently inspired: everlasting lilies. "Isn’t that funny?" Sirius had explained. "Lilies being the death flower and all..."

This briefly reminded me of my mother and how she had named me. The death flower to her probably signified the death of the rest of her life. My sister had been named Petunia, and I had been named Lily. Lily of the death flowers. Wonderful. In Shakespeare, whenever I read the play Hamlet, I always imagined Ophelia’s watery suicide to have dozens of my namesakes floating around her, crowding at her head until she slips fully under.

I was suicide, plainly epitomized all within my name, and James was lifeblood flowing through a world of veins.

I looked at him with a small smile and enjoyed the way he was animatedly talking with Sirius about the everlasting lilies. He seemed to be itching to get started on creating them along with the thousands of other oddities and death-traps Sirius and he could possibly think up. A vague thought crossed my mind–what would happen to them once they finally ran out of ideas? Was that even possible for two such boys, healthily imaginative and thriving with opportunity?

Sirius Black and James Potter looked quite alike, particularly when glimpsing their two profiles at the same time. James had a slightly longer nose, and Sirius higher eyebrows, but both had the raven hair and chocolate eyes that drove me crazy. As Melissa crawled onto her big brother’s lap, she looked like an almost perfect cross between the two boys only with a slight spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose. They were all dark with athletic bodies and charming features, and there I sat, redheaded with green eyes, small and pale and extremely different in almost every way.

But then, just before I could truly feel alienated, Sirius motioned for me to come sit on his lap as well. This made everyone laugh, and because I was in the holiday spirit, I acquiesced. I had a vivid flash of him popping a boner on me last year at a gambling night, but this time I felt nothing hard pressed against my bottom. He instead wrapped an arm around my waist (much like James had done on the banister) and played a bit with my hair with his free hand. James grinned at us, and I grinned back. The four of us talked for the rest of trip of frivolous things, enjoying each other’s company and forgetting about all the bad in the world.

Melissa told us briefly of how her first year at Hogwarts had been going–she’d loved everything so far, and was quite infatuated with a boy her own age named David. "But don’t worry, Sirius," she added quickly, "I’ll always love you best."

This caused us to snicker until the train came to a final halt–we had at last arrived at Platform 9 and ¾.

James carried Melissa’s bags and Sirius struggled comically with mine–"What on earth do you put in here, Lil-lay-me-down-and-screw-me-senseless?"–and soon, we were stepping off onto the platform. Rosy-cheeked and starry-eyed, Mrs. Georgia Potter enveloped all four of us into one large hug at once.

"Mum!" Melissa moaned tiredly, such the adult now. "Don’t! We’re blocking everyone else’s way."

Mrs. Potter laughed, but let us go. We moved in a quick flurry over to Mr. Potter’s side where we were greeted with yet another warm hug.

"Dad," James beamed.

"James," Mr. Potter said, holding James back a little to get a good look at him. "You’ve grown again!"

Mrs. Potter was enveloping Sirius and me again. "Oh! You dears have come back to us again. Good, good! James owled and said you were coming, and I’ve prepared a bit of a feast. Henry says I’ve outdone myself, but that’s all tosh… Welcome, welcome! We’ve got presents for you back home, but you just must wait for them till we get there, I’m afraid... Oh dear, come on!"

She dragged Melissa into the hug as well, and Sirius and I moved to Mr. Potter, who shook hands warmly with Sirius and gave me a thumping pat on the back. "Georgia and I are so glad to have you back again," he grinned, looking quite a lot like his son.

"Henry!" Mrs. Potter giggled, sounding momentarily half her age. "Let’s Apparate now, can’t we?"

The adults threw their arms around us and suddenly we were in the Potter family living room.

James, Sirius, Melissa and I gasped audibly. Last year, James had muttered in my ear that his mother had gone all out for my arrival, but this year made the Christmas prior look insignificant. Warm glittering snow was swirling magically all around us, and every single wall was bedecked in a rainbow of blinking Christmas lights. Trees of every sort were growing out of the corners of the room, all decorated with magical charms that danced about from bough to bough.

Christmas music blasted, frost teased at our hair, and fairy sprites played mini violins silently at the ceiling. The chandelier had lit up icicles for lights, and flecks of glittery gold kept showering down all over the furniture. Classic Muggle stockings were strewn haphazardly over the mantle, and holly lined every table. Presents, brilliantly wrapped in all sorts of fantastic wrapping paper and ribbons and bows packed almost everything, and as a crowning glory, a small fairy angel sang regally atop the highest Christmas tree.

The fire roared in the fireplace with cheer as we stood dumbstruck, marveling at our spectacular surroundings.

James was the first to recover.

"Mum!" he breathed with amazement. "You’re brilliant."

"I know, dear, and it’s going to go to my head if you say any more," she smiled, clapping him on the back. "But don’t just stand there. To your rooms, all of you! Put your things down and freshen up. Dinner will be ready in less than an hour. I think you may be right, Henry… I might’ve just outdone myself…"

Sirius gaped, "That’s for sure."

James and Sirius each took one of my bags, and Melissa gathered up her own. We made our way, still in awe, out of the living room and into the hallway which was, if anything, even more splendid.

"Padfoot," James said, "you know where to go. I’ll meet you and Melissa back here for dinner. You heard Mum, don’t be late."

"Aye aye, captain," Sirius said in a pirate’s voice, and Melissa nodded her head in agreement. They both took opposite staircases up to their rooms, and then James and I ascended the middle staircase up onto a floor I had never seen before. The first pair of double doors on the right we stopped at. James set down my stuff, flung them open, and smiled.

"I told Mum to decorate this one for you. It’s comfier than the one you used last year, and this way I’m only right down the hall if you need me for anything. Sirius can’t annoy you much this way, either."

"Thank you," I smiled, glancing in the room and noting it was covered with poinsettia and white water lilies. Georgia Potter knew exactly what to do to make things festive.

James moved my bags in the door and left me to unpack with a tip of his imaginary hat.

Thoughtfully, I put my things away much in the orderly manner I had put them away the year before. I then sifted through a drawer and found my white, spaghetti-strap holiday gown with the gold lace hemming the bottom. Putting it carefully on, I gazed down at my arms and knew that I wouldn’t have to worry about anyone seeing scars and bruises this year. James had healed me.

James... He did so much for me. My thoughts drifted briefly to what I’d gotten him for Christmas, and I hoped fervently that he would be pleased. I would be devastated if he were to say something noncommittal like "Oh, that’s nice" and toss it to the side or something. He had to love it. He just had to.

I brushed my hair out but left it long and down instead of doing it up fancy. I would save the upsweeps for Christmas Eve and Christmas night, but not now. Today was a day for relaxation and fun and enjoyment. After fixing my make up and making sure my dress wasn’t too short, I spun around before the mirror for consultation.

"Very nice," it assured me in a deep, booming voice.

"Thank you," I replied, looking down at my frail body.

The dress was tight and fitted until the waist, where it delicately blossomed out, ending with gold lace an inch above my knee. Mrs. Potter had custom-made it for me last year and I was glad that it still fit.

I made my way down to the meeting place and found Melissa already there, but the boys absent. She was charming in a dark purple, velvet robe that her mother had undoubtedly made. It had silver stars all over it, and also had a V-neck that allowed her small bosom some room to breathe. A necklace of amber hung at her throat. An exquisite little girl, the rich clothing only amplified her natural beauty. She smiled good-naturedly at me.

"Hello, Lily," Melissa said happily.

"Hi," I said back.

"We haven’t talked much since I’ve been at Hogwarts. We’ve both been busy. How has your year been going so far?" she asked, all traces of her former shyness gone. When I had first met her a year ago, she had been very much a child in awe of me–her brother’s ‘girl friend’. Now she regarded me as she would an interesting acquaintance. I rewarded her maturity with an honest answer.

"It’s had both its ups and downs, but mostly it’s been wonderful. I always have a great time at school. I love it there. I can’t believe I’ll be graduating in only three years, if you count this one. Time has really flown..."

"I love Hogwarts too, and I’ve only been there a couple of months. But of course I’ve always heard tons about it from Jay."

"Your brother always tells everyone tons about everything it seems," I smiled.

"Yes. Good old Jay," Melissa smiled back, using her pet nickname for James.

"I’ve been lucky enough to become rather good friends with him, I think," I said confidingly.

"Are you his _girlfriend_ yet?" she asked, scrunching her nose a little.

I laughed. "Oh, no. Not his girlfriend. Just his–"

"Girl that is a friend," James finished for me from behind. Sirius and he entered the room together. Both had their eyebrows raised, but neither said anything about the conversation they’d just heard. I blushed, embarrassed.

"Dinner is just about ready I think," Sirius finally said, and we made our way into the dining room.

& & & & & & & & & & &

The days passed by in a blur of excitement and fun and niceties, and soon it was Christmas Eve. All of us were gathered before the fire, exchanging gifts. Melissa had given out all of hers (I had received a thick, leather-bound notebook that I eventually came to write this very story in) and so had Sirius (he gave me the honorary very first everlasting lily and a few miscellaneous self-made prank items). Mrs. Potter had made me three new beautiful dresses, and Mr. Potter had given all of us some very nice wizarding atlases and a traveler’s tale to go along with them. James and I passed out our gifts, but held back giving the last packages to each other.

Once everyone had finally gone to bed, we sat down by the fire again and handed each other clumsily wrapped packages on the count of three.

We both opened the paper slowly, and marveled at what the other had given.

I had given James a series of diaries I’d kept over the course of my lifetime, uncensored, save for the one I currently possessed–the one that talked about my friendship with James and how I had feelings for him. These were the most detailed explanations I could ever give anyone of my life and I knew that he would understand them. The look of recognition in his eyes told me all I needed to know–he was honored. I grinned, and looked down to finish unwrapping my present.

It was a ring box.

I stared.

"These are diaries, aren’t they?" James asked me slowly.

"Yes," I answered, looking up at him, my heart fluttering. "The earliest one I started when I was six. I’ve never let anybody read them before, but I’m giving them to you because I trust you and I want you to know me. I want you to know me as I truly am, and I want to see if you’ll still be my friend after you know."

"I’ll always be your friend, Lily," he said with a shake of his head. "No matter what. But I am honestly flattered to be given these. I’ll take care of them, I promise."

I nodded.

"Is this a ring box?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said, breaking into a smile. "Open it."

Almost having a heart attack, I did. Inside was a small silver ring just big enough for my pinky with a beautiful emerald stone surrounded by tiny diamonds set on it. I gasped, for it was beautiful, and I was amazed.

"It’s a friendship ring," James said. "You’ve given me so much over the course of the past year Lily, and I meant when I said I’m never going to let you go. It’s nothing to rival those eyes of yours of course, but it’s something. It’s so you always remember me."

"I don’t think I could ever forget you," I said slowly, turning it over in my hand in awe.

"Put it on," he urged.

"I can’t seem to bring myself to," I muttered, staring at it.

James laughed. "Let me do the honors then," he said, and plucked it out of my palm. He took my right hand pinky and slipped it on. It was a perfect fit. I stared at it a moment more, and then snapped my head up to look him dead in the eyes.

"Thank you," I said.

"You’re welcome," he replied, and the look he gave me I shall indeed always remember, for it was the look that made me realize I wanted to have his children someday.

I hugged him, and breathed in his scent.

What a wonderful Christmas, yet again.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & &/p>

Before Christmas dinner, all the Potters were busy. Mrs. Potter was cooking up a storm and Mr. Potter was busy using his cartography skills to make a map of Muggle London. Melissa and James had decided to work on their wandsmanship in the Potter family dueling hall. Sirius and I were left to ourselves to wander through the many halls in the Potter household.

As we walked, I decided to ask him about Arabella.

"Sirius," I began most abruptly, "I sincerely believe that you’ve been harboring a crush on my best friend Arabella Figg. True or false? Quickly.”�

He gave me a funny look and was silent for a moment. "Why?"

"Oh, curious. I’ve seen you looking at her and I _know_ I’ve seen her looking at you. I just wondered if something was going on or not that I might need be aware of."

"Nothing’s going on," he said hurriedly. After a pause, he added, "Though, okay, I sort of wish something was."

"So you do like her, then?"

"Er, I suppose you could say that, in a manner of speaking," he nodded.

"I _knew_ you did. Why haven’t you told her? It isn’t like you to be discreet."

"Heh, thanks, Lily. She’s out of my league, that’s why," he said, shrugging loftily. "She’s beautiful. You are too, you’re one of the most gorgeous girls I’ve ever seen, don’t get me wrong, but… Arabella is different. Besides, you’re James’s." He shot me a sly look.

"James’s? James and I are not dating."

"You know what I mean."

"No, I really don’t. Clue me in."

He sighed. "It’s obvious you’ve got a thing for him, Lily. Everyone knows it."

_Everyone?_ I became alarmed, and with that defensive. "I do not. He’s just a friend."

"Sure," Sirius said, "and I’m just _a little_ cute."

I snorted, and he continued.

"Arabella would never go out with me. You know that as well as I do."

"Quite the opposite, Sirius,”� I smiled, raising my eyebrows at him. “I think she’s a bit in love with you, actually."

" _Actually_ , love is a strong word. Don’t get my hopes up."

" _Actually_ , I’ll pay you five galleons to try your luck on her."

"Are you kidding me?" he laughed.

"Does this look like the face of a kidder?" I grinned back.

"Okay, then, little miss Lily. I’ll do it, just to prove you wrong. As soon as I can work up the guts, that is..."

We shook hands. This was going to be fun.

& & & & & & & & & & & & &

After dinner, everyone but James and I quickly retired to bed. He and I sat at the kitchen table, opening the last of our gifts. I had three–one from Arabella, one from Remus, and a letter from Lucius.

Arabella had given me some very sexy black lingerie with a note that simply read–‘Since you’re already at his house... Love, Arabella’. I quickly hid that from James’s view and turned on the present from Remus. He’d sent me some very expensive, quality quills along with three bottles of emerald ink. ‘ _Write me letters_ ’ his card read. I smiled, and at last opened the letter from Lucius.

_Dear Lily,_

_When you get back to Hogwarts, look under your pillow. Your real letter awaits you there. Merry Christmas._

__

_Love, Lucius._

I quickly hid that from James’s view too, and caught him up in conversation before he could ask me what I’d gotten.

"James, would you like to go Christmas caroling with me?"

"Er," he said, "that depends."

"On what?"

"On what Christmas caroling _is_."

"Oh. It’s a Muggle Christmas activity. You bundle up in warm clothes and go singing Christmas songs from street to street, often with a mug of hot chocolate or apple cider. More often than not drunk people do it, but sometimes sober people do it too. We could do it sober."

"Don’t people throw things at you and tell you to shut up?"

"Well, no."

"Oh."

"Are there any Muggle neighborhoods near here that we could go?"

James paused to think for a minute. "No."

"Hm," I said. "I’ll just carol for you right here then. What would you like to hear?"

"Something sickeningly catchy if you please," he smiled.

I stood up, thought for a second, and then sang a snatch of something.

"I don’t want a lot for Christmas," I began. "There is just one thing I need and I don’t care about presents beneath the Christmas tree..."

James laughed.

I continued singing merrily, "I just want you for my own, more than you could ever know, make my wish come true, ohhh, all I want for Christmas is you..."

He smiled, tilted his head like Sirius, and held out his hands. I took them and kneeled down in front of him. Holding my cheek in one hand, he brushed a piece of stray hair and softly looked upwards. Following his gaze, I looked up and saw mistletoe.

"You always seem to get under it when you come over here," he said with a laugh in his voice.

"Yes, I do," I swallowed.

James leaned in slowly and kissed delicately me on the cheek, and my body exploded with fireworks of every color.

"Merry Christmas, Lily," he said. 

"Merry Christmas, James," I breathed. 


	16. Progression

 

**Deconstruct, a Memoir**

By Solarism

_Chapter Eighteen—Progression_ ****

{This chapter’s song is: Lasting Impressions by The Starting Line.} __

 

 

 

            I couldn’t help it. Even though I had had the time of my life at James’s house over the Christmas holidays, the short note Lucius had owled me stayed on my mind all through the train ride back home. As soon as we returned to Hogwarts I quickly made my excuses and literally ran to my dorm room, so torturous was my curiosity.

            I knew that I shouldn’t be so excited. I was still very angry at Lucius for fighting with James, wasn’t I? Till my dying day, I knew that I would never forget what I had felt like when he made James bleed... but, all in all, I had been through a lot with the handsome Malfoy heir, and in a lot of ways he still commanded my attention. I could never pass by him blankly in the hallways, for instance, as I would with someone I didn’t know. Lucius would always haunt the back of my thoughts, day and night, though I tried not to think much about him. And now he had sent me a letter, and here it was waiting for me as he had promised under my very pillow...

            I took it up in my hands and stared at the envelope, not knowing whether to cast it into the common room fire or read it till I’d had my heart’s content of hearing from him again. Lucius Malfoy, a walking Hogwarts legend in his own right, had deemed it necessary to tell me something. The something was so important that he had sent me not only a letter, but also a memo instructing me exactly where to find it. Was it so wrong to be interested?

            I sat down on my sturdy four-poster and drew the curtains slowly around me, a feeling of excitement mixed with dread fluttering unpleasantly in my stomach. I felt as if I were betraying something by doing this, and although my heart kept screaming at me not to open the envelope, I shakily raised a finger and broke the wax seal that had held it closed. With a low tremble, I pulled the letter out and began to read.

_My darling Lily,_

_I am writing to you to apologize for my behavior. I’ve been horrible, haven’t I?_

_I understand that my fight with Potter upset you. You have every right to hate me for dueling with your friend, but Lily, my Lily... please don’t shut me entirely out of your life. I only did it in a stupid act of jealous rage. I saw you with him and my mistrusting nature got the best of me. I did not want to lose you, you have to understand, I did not want to lose you at all. It seems, however, that through my rash actions, I have actually succeeded in doing just that... It is making me miserable._

_Please come back to me._

_We’ve been through a lot of good years with each other and have always supported each other before now. I find myself missing you with every second of every day. (Is that unusual for a flippant boy of my age? Probably.) Lily, listen to me and believe me when I say that you mean everything in the world to me. Please don’t kill me; please don’t stay away._

_The truth is you’re the first girl I’ve ever felt this way about and I don’t think I could ever feel the same about anyone else._

_I’m in love with you, Lily Evans, and that makes me do stupid things sometimes._

_I am so sorry. Please forgive me. I patiently await your reply..._

_Love, Lucius_

            I felt the pit in my stomach sink first lower and then rise higher. Stunned and motionless, I remained quietly sitting on my bed for a few minutes. I stared at the paper and realized the full weight of his words. Lucius was in love with me. He was the first person ever to feel like this about me. And I felt sick.

            The significance of this was both monumental and meaningless. I didn’t know how to handle it, so in turn didn’t handle it at all.

            Instead, I silently put the letter back in its envelope and placed the envelope back under my pillow. Rewinding the whole situation, I got up and walked out of my dorm room.

            Part of me was smoldering with rage inside. Because now I’d have to forgive him.

            God damn, now I’d have to forgive him...

 

 

 

& & & & & & & & & & & & &

 

            James and I began to work some more on our Mages. We decided that we would help each other study for the Dark Arts Mage, because that was one of the hardest ones we could currently find it in ourselves to master and both of us felt like we needed a challenge to occupy our minds. James was concerned about Melissa and how she was adjusting to life at Hogwarts. He was proud of her, but many a time he told me that she seemed incredibly distant. She’d always been very lively and talkative with him at home, but now she treated him austerely. He also knew that she hadn’t owled their parents very much...

            I was dealing with the impact of Lucius’s letter. I’d only spoken to him once since I’d come back to Hogwarts and read what he had to say. It was at the first gambling night of the new year. I sought him out and managed to pull him aside and whisper in his ear that we could be friends again, maybe, if he promised never to harm James again. Lucius had liked that and had sworn to never lift a finger or a wand against any of the Marauders again. I decided to trust his word on that mostly because I felt badly that I didn’t love him back, and because I could see in his eyes that furthermore he _knew_ I didn’t love him back. Everything was so terribly muddled though—the memories of the fight and of the bruises, the memories of the kisses and the lust that had raced through my very bloodstream—and it caused me to worry over what I was doing. Lucius Malfoy was an enemy to be reckoned with, but I finally came to the decision that either way, you should keep your friends close but your enemies closer. Whatever would come would come, and I had made my choice, for better or for worse. I hoped to rock music not for worse.

            Altogether, the Dark Arts Mage was just the thing I needed to preoccupy me. It required more extensive research and memorization than any Mage James and I had encountered thus far. We got notes to explore the Restricted Section of the school library and utilized all of the vile books that it contained to aide us in our quest for understanding. Our pace was slow and stumbling. It was very hard for minds as young as ours to read such disgusting words and to learn about such disgusting forms of magic.

            Many a night that January James and I spent curled up in big armchairs in our common room, debating and discussing the problems and ethical issues the things we read brought up. We almost always agreed with each other’s opinions, but in order to get the most out of what we were reading we took turns pretending to believe the opposite. The person against the evil magic had to convince the person for it why it was bad and immoral and rightfully outlawed. James was persuasive beyond belief, and I remember thinking often that he could have made a splendid Muggle lawyer. Except for that Muggle lawyers tend to lie, and James’s persuasion was so wide-eyed and honest that it was like being educated by goodness itself.

            We were hardcore learners. James and I strived to be the best; both of us concentrated wholeheartedly on our dreams and aspirations. The Dark Arts Mage was a little painful blip in the way of an extraordinarily bright future, and we knew that we could beat it. We were going to have to in order to become Aurors. For a large part of that January, that was all that mattered... our futures.

            We started getting headaches from reading so much. Our professors were fondly worried for our health; even Headmaster Dumbledore gave us looks of concern when he happened to pass us in the Great Hall. We bore our headaches and bleary eyes like war wounds; we were fighting the good fight and we were proud. Not even sleep mattered much to us. When we needed to rest, we put our foreheads together and used body warmth for blankets. Our bodies were each other’s beds, and it was so nice to be so close to him. With my eyelashes tickling his, with his lips less than a centimeter away from mine, it was glorious. Why retire to my bedroom, to the cold and lonely four-poster where Lucius’s letter still lurked, when I could simply forfeit sleep altogether for such a refreshing bliss?

            James was good at touching me. As sexual as that sounds, I don’t at all mean it in that way. He was always a perfect gentleman with me—nothing more than a good friend—but he liked to touch people, just like I did, and touch me he did. He would reach over and brush the hair out of my eyes when it threatened to harm my vision; he would set his chin on my shoulder and read the same book that I was; he would cup my fingers in his hands and blow warm air on them to keep me warm. I did the same for him when I could, and he never once recoiled from my touch. I felt, that month, the most at peace with life that I had in a very long time.

            We started attracting stares. Girls I’d never seen before started to look upon me with envious eyes, and whispering giggles were becoming more and more common throughout the halls as James and I walked past... Even though I knew the envy was totally ungrounded as James clearly had other things on his mind besides snogging me senseless, it made me stand up just a little bit straighter and smile just a little bit brighter. So what if they thought that James and I were an item? And why shouldn’t they? If nothing else, he was my best friend. That had to count for something. Didn’t it?

            "Lily," James said to me one night with his eyes shut and his fingers to his temples, "have you noticed the stares you attract in the hallways?"

            "What?" I asked, taken totally aback.

            "Every boy at Hogwarts is staring at you, you know. They think you’re the most beautiful girl ever to grace the world with her presence."

            "They do?"

            "Yes, they do. Haven’t you seen the way they look at you? Haven’t you seen the way they try to catch your eye? They’re all of them vying for your touch, your smile, a glance, a greeting. First year through seventh, they’re all half in love. How can you not know that?"

            "I... I suppose I’m just not very perceptive," I said, biting my lip and wondering if what he said was true. James wasn’t one to often over-exaggerate.

            "Next month is Valentine’s Day. Anybody in mind?"

            "No," I lied, looking at him like he said all of those boys looked at me. But he didn’t notice. He was too busy rubbing his temples.

            "No one? You could have anyone that you wanted, Lily, absolutely anyone. I know we’ve been thinking about studying so much that we’ve gotten sidetracked... Lily, we’ve gotten sidetracked from our lives."

            "Maybe we have," I said awkwardly, because the way he said it made me feel half-ashamed.

            "Don’t you have any interest in anyone? Isn’t there anyone who makes your world go round?"

            "Actually," I said softly as he opened his eyes and stared at me with a warm smile, "there is someone."

            "Anyone I know?" he asked.

            "That depends on your perception I suppose," I said slowly.

            "Well, regardless, I think you deserve someone perfect for you. I think you deserve the world, Lily. You’ve worked so hard. So have I. We both deserve to be teenagers, don’t you think? We get so worked up over the future, but let’s not forget the present. Promise me you’ll do something at least for Valentine’s Day, even if it’s just hanging out with Arabella for the night. Just do something to get your mind off of all this shit. All of this shit, here in these damned textbooks... none of this should have ever been written. They’re swallowing up our youth in the largest fucking gulps they can get, don’t you see it? I don’t want to lose touch of you, Lily, and I don’t want to lose touch of me ,either. So let’s not. So let’s have a little fun, is all I’m trying to say, because you’re beautiful and you deserve it."

            I stared at him, mouth slightly open, eyes wide with amazement. _James Potter just told me that I was beautiful, he just opened up his perfect little mouth and uttered the words I’ve wanted to hear since the day I met him. He just looked at me with those dizzy eyes and I went crazy mad in happiness. He closed his eyes and all the world dropped dead; he raised his lids and all was born again. My lord, I must be mad, like Sylvia Plath’s love song, because with those hazel traces and blue and green swirls, all the world is bedazzled..._

            "You just called me beautiful," I said quietly.

            "I did," James said, his face perfectly solemn, "and I meant it."

            Swallowing hard, I took his hand in mine and gave it a squeeze. "Thank you so much, James. Thank you for everything. You’ve been... you’ve been my world lately. Words just cannot describe."

            He smiled and touched my cheek. "Think about what I said. I’m going to start having some fun. You need to, too. Then in awhile, we can start up on this again together. But we’re kids, Lily. We’re just two kids in a crazy world, looking for adventure."

            I laughed. "You’re so right. But then again, you always are."

 

& & & & & & & & & & &

 

 

            Part of James’s plan to start having more fun occurred in the last week of the month. He and the rest of the Marauders—who for the past three weeks had understood that James and I needed to be alone to study—decided to play a prank on the Slytherins. It was classic, effective, and efficient... and it was what they did best. Sirius, Remus, Peter, and James were masterminds. For a whole day all four of them disappeared, Arabella and I speculated to Hogsmeade, and upon their return they were grinning like fiends and were armed with bags and bags of things that looked suspiciously like fireworks. Arabella and I respectfully diverted our gazes and pretended that my Prefect badge did not exist. James, I noticed, had left his in his dorm.

            The next morning at breakfast, the entire student body assembled peacefully enough. We sat around nibbling toast and eggs and pancakes and sipping orange juice from the big golden goblets that had probably been around since the school opened, minding our own business and mindlessly chattering about the day’s activities and classes. Then, without notice, there was a huge uproar.

            Dangling in the air about ten feet about the Slytherin table were over a hundred dead-looking, glowing green, sparkling snakes. They formed the words ‘Slytherins Suck Major Snake Arse’. The teachers let out horrified gasps—oh, the profanity, oh, the profanity!—and the Slytherins jumped up in rage. The rest of the houses began to laugh uncontrollably.

            "It’s funny because it’s true! Hahahahahahahha!!" laughed Arabella, clutching onto my arm and pointing up to it. I grinned, and caught Sirius’s glance at me out of the corner of my eye. I flashed him a low-key thumbs up, and he nodded appreciatively. No doubt the phrase had been his clever idea. As we all watched and the teachers fumbled for their wands, the snakes exploded into red and gold fireworks. Then, before anyone could move, the fireworks turned into paint, and there you had it—the Slytherins and their table was officially marked Gryffindor territory. Everyone let out a huge whoop of laughter, and the Marauders laughed the loudest of all.

            Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs, and fellow Gryffindors alike were slapping the boys on the back and offering congratulations on a prank well-pulled. There was no question in anyone’s mind whom this prank had been done by—always and forever it would be the Marauders. There was no one else even _close_ to being in their league.

            Within five minutes, McGonagall had stood up on her chair from the High Table and shouted at the top of her lungs, "Pettigrew, Lupin, Black and Potter! _DETENTION_!"

            And that, everyone knew, was that.

 

 

& & & & & & & & & & &  


 

 

            I kept what James said in mind too. I spent the rest of the last week of the month almost solely with Arabella. She loved to laugh and so did I; we made the perfect pair in our current states of mind. On a whim, one day we decided we should put a single streak of blonde in our hair. It was Aria’s idea. She said it might be nice to be a little quirky, to be a little different. It would be the Lily and Aria club. Only we were allowed in it and to get in, you had to have a streak of blonde (representative of craziness) in your hair. I readily agreed, and we broke out Arabella’s many make up and hair products. Sure enough, she had enough platinum blonde hair dye to give just about every girl in the school a streak if they wanted one.

            She handed me one of the streaking utensils. It was a funny thing that looked something like a cross between a toothbrush and a toothpick. I brandished it at my bedpost, and Aria watched me with her eyebrows raised and a smug smile on her lips.

            And then we streaked our hair. It came out startlingly well, particularly in my hair. We marveled at ourselves in the mirror, and then decided we’d go and show the boys. They had just gotten out of detention, so it was the perfect opportunity. Arabella called from the top of the girls’ staircase down into the common room, "Oh, boys? Sirius, James, Remus, Peter?"

            "Eh?" came Remus’ voice, and then a high-pitched giggle that sounded scarily like Sirius.

            "We’ve got a surprise for you," she cooed in an alarmingly seductive tone.

            "Eh!" James shouted up.

            "We’ll be right down," I yelled.

            Arabella decided to go first. She pranced her way down the staircase, showing off her legs and tossing her hair left and right like a pony to show off her new blonde streak. There was a chorus of curious oohs and ahhs from the boys, and then a dazed "holy fuck" from Sirius, and then a "get the hell off me" from Arabella. I smiled, and sat at the top of the banister with my legs crossed and my head facing toward the common room below. "Here I come," I called.

            Gently, James-esque, I slid down the banister, stopping perfectly still at the end of it. Everyone was quiet. I hopped off, clasped my hands in front of me, and raised my eyebrows hopefully. "What do you think?"

            James was the first to speak. "As I said before, beautiful as always."

            Arabella beamed at me from across the room where she was standing conspicuously close to Sirius.

            I bit my lip, trying to hold back my pride. James had called me beautiful twice, I had just given my hair a streak of blonde, and it was a beautiful, beautiful day.

            And then, at a glance, I noticed something I hadn’t at first. There, off to the side, Sirius had his arm lightly around Arabella’s waist, and Arabella for her part was leaning slightly on Sirius’ chest.

            That, if anything, was the best part of it all.

 

 

& & & & & & & & & &

 

 

             I walked down the halls and tried to pay attention to who looked at me and who didn’t. On my way to class, just in passing, I noticed that James had spoken correctly. I wondered why I’d never noticed before. People stopped talking when I walked by. People stopped to stare. I decided that I definitely was not comfortable with this recent development. James said they stared because they thought I was beautiful; I thought they stared because they hated me or something awful like that. It annoyed me, by any means, because it was distracting when everything suddenly fell silent.

            Just when I was about to snap at a few second years and ask them why the hell they couldn’t stop gawking, James came up beside me and asked me if I was heading to class. I was, and decided it wouldn’t be particularly wise to snap at anyone in front of him, so held my tongue and moved away from the gaping idiots instead.

            "They’re all staring at me, James," I whispered unhappily.

            "Oh, so you’ve finally noticed. You don’t like it?"

            "No, I don’t. There’s nothing to be so interested in."

            "Maybe so."

            "What does that mean?"

            "Well," James shrugged lightly, "if you think they have no reason to stare, why don’t you at least give them a reason to?"

            "What?"

            "Watch and learn," he laughed, and took both of my hands in his. "Attention everyone!" he shouted, and everyone looked over at us, interested. "My dear friend and fellow Gryffindor Prefect Lily Evans will, for a short period of time, be my dance partner during this interlude between Transfiguration and Charms. Please, audience, no pictures, no pictures! And maestro, you may beginnnn!"

            "What the hell, James?!" I screeched, my eyes open wide with disbelief.

            "Dance," he encouraged me. "Don’t think, just dance. Don’t think, just laugh."

            I stared at him for a second, so he spun me wildly around to get me started. I, completely mortified, assumed the correct dancing position after that. He waltzed me, that last day of January, from class to class. We danced to the music he hummed—funny little pieces that I’d never heard of before—and caused quite a stir among the student body. All throughout the halls, people parted for the dancing couple.

            I knew that day that I had to tell him. I had to tell him I liked him. And I made a resolve to do it, and do it soon...


	17. A Dilemma

**Deconstruct, a Memoir**

By Solarism

_Chapter Sixteen—A Dilemma_

{This chapter’s song is: Come Away With Me by Norah Jones.}

 

 

 & & &

 

 

 

I wondered about how to go about telling James that I liked him. It was odd to think about such things, because in the past I’d never had to. I’d only ever really ‘been’ with Lucius, and he’d been the one to initiate the so-called romance, not me. I was at a loss when it came to topics like this one. For all my feminine wiles and masterful planning, the thought of approaching James Potter and laying my heart in his hands made me quiver.

He had to like me back, didn’t he?

I decided I desperately needed a confidant. I would’ve told Arabella, but I had a feeling that she wouldn’t approve of me falling for someone who was already such a good friend of mine. She hadn’t minded when I liked Lucius, but James was different. She knew him very closely as well and knew almost everything that went on between the two of us. She would probably advise me to forget about telling him; Valentine’s Day was rapidly approaching and it didn’t seem exactly appropriate to confess my crush during such an awkward time of the year. But I didn’t want to hear that, even though I knew it was probably right.

It was just that I felt this huge, overwhelming urge to say something to him about it. I thought over the many different ways I could say it. I could say it casually, like, "Hey James. I think you’re a sexy beast." Or I could say it romantically, like, "James, darling, I’ve never liked any boy as much as I like you." Or, I could just flat out be all like, "James—go out with me, okay, thanks." But none of those really seemed right. I was too nervous to be casual, too practical to be mushy, and I cared too much for him to be blatant. Late at night I’d lie awake in bed, trying to figure out the perfect way to tell James that I liked him. Nothing seemed to fit.

Frustrated, I decided it would come to me when I stopped focusing on it so much. So I tried to quit thinking about it; I tried to quit thinking about him.

But he was so touchable! Every time he got close to me, I let my hands explore his shoulder blades or his hair, his eyelashes or cheekbones, his kneecaps or his elbows... And he, in turn, laughed and smiled and gave me mocking little pats on the head. He loved to dance with me from class to class, and it became a regular routine for us. Every day he would waltz me to Charms, and every day everybody around us in the hallways would stop in frank amazement.

Sirius and Remus hung out with us quite a bit. I enjoyed their company endlessly; every day was like my own personal comedy show. They were hilarious and caring and they liked to direct little flirty comments my way. Remus would bat his eyelashes in a mock-girly way, and Sirius would raise his eyebrows and put his tongue in his cheek. They always did this when James wasn’t paying attention; and poor James could never figure out why I giggled so much whenever he got distracted.

Sirius and Remus were the kind of guys that had absolutely no problem flaunting that they were totally comfortable with their sexuality. In fact, if I hadn’t seen them give certain girls the eye so much in the past, I’d swear to goodness that they could be possibly gay sometimes. Sirius giggled in a higher pitch than even I did, and Remus had nicer legs than Arabella. They loved to have fun and have fun they did—it was clear why the Marauders were such good friends. They united under a common interest: laughter. It got me to thinking about how the hell I ever managed to become friends with them. The beginning of fourth year now seemed light-years away... third year and before seemed to never have existed. It felt like these boys were the ones I’d always known; the ones that had always been there.

Of course this wasn’t true. Before the beginning of fourth year, it had been Lucius and the gambling night regulars and Narcissa... Narcissa! What? I hadn’t spared her a thought in the longest time. Feeling a sudden onset of shame, I began to wonder what she had been up to since we last spoke... Was she still dating that boy? Was she still in contact with Arabella? Arabella never spoke about her. Arabella was just as enthralled in James and Co. as I was, I knew. Was I really the sort of person who forgot her friends with such ease? Oh shit, what she must think of me now...

But there was so little time to feel bad. I was on a constant train of happiness; everything was rushing ahead at such a sure velocity. I could not find time to question myself even for a minute. I was in love with life and every doubt was getting drowned out of mind. Was I drowning my morality? Was I forgetting where I started, who I started with—where I came from, as it were? I didn’t know, but there was no time to care. There was never any time to dwell with James and Sirius and Remus. We were immortal and free and nothing was ever going to get in our way. My bliss was overflowing, and I loved it.

In the mean time, I kept noticing that Sirius and Arabella seemed to be becoming better and better friends. I saw him casting sidelong glances at her as she walked by, and saw her toss him a look over her shoulder when she thought he wasn’t looking. It interested me that they (quite obviously) liked each other; I wondered when they would get together. The trouble is that the both of them were being uncharacteristically coy. They didn’t flirt very openly as a general rule, which of course confused me. As well as I knew Aria, I’d never been aware that she could be so _chaste_.

One day they decided that they wanted to go to Hogsmeade. They announced this to James and me in the common room, and oddly enough didn’t extend an invitation for us to come along. Surprised, James gave Sirius the Invisibility Cloak and after Sirius had retrieved the Marauder’s Map from me (I had been studying it), they walked off—their hands suspiciously close and constantly brushing.

I vaguely recalled how when James had first shown me the Map the other Marauders had been distressed over it. Sirius now seemed to have no qualms over bringing Arabella into the wonderful world of sneaking around, which made me raise an eyebrow or two. He must have really liked her.

James and I were left alone.

"You know," he said with a curious tone in his voice, "I’m a bit hungry, actually."

"Are you now?" I asked, instantly amused. I liked how he said things like that at the most random times. It made him fun to be around.

"Yes, very," he nodded, instantly jumping up and clapping his hands together. "What do you say to escorting me down to the kitchens for a quick bite?"

"But Sirius and Arabella just took the Map and the Cloak..."

"So? There’s much more to being a Marauder than some silly old map and some silly old cloak. It’s not enough just being able to sneak around with the aid of those things. Anybody can do that. All of us are quite adept, I think you’ll find, at getting where we want to go with little to no help at all," he smiled, his eyes dancing with an emotion somewhat similar to pride.

"Fair enough," I nodded, and got up as well. "But let’s just say, hypothetically, what would happen if we did get caught?"

"Well, we’d get detentions. But thanks to me that’s nothing new for you, is it Lily, darling?"

I laughed. "Well, alright then. It’ll be an adventure."

"Exactly!"

He grabbed my sleeve and literally began dragging me toward the common room exit. I had to walk very, very fast to keep from tripping. "What’s your rush, speedy?" I asked as the portrait swung open and he jumped down into the hallway.

"We’ve got so many things to do," he said with a grin, looking up at me. "We’re going on an adventure to the kitchens. I know it’s not much right now to you, but someday we’re going to go everywhere. You’ll see. Paris, Hawaii, Egypt, Brazil, and even Antarctica. We’ve got to see it all."

I laughed, "We should."

"We will," he said, and held his hand up to help me hop down.

I took it without any hesitation and landed neatly beside him. The portrait of the Fat Lady swung shut behind us and we made our way down the hallway. I opened my mouth a couple of times to ask him something, but every time he put a finger to his lips and gave me a look of sympathetic amusement. After about ten minutes of this, I finally gave up. Then I started paying attention to what way we were going. We were actually traveling _away_ from the kitchens. I stopped, tapped him on the shoulder, and pointed behind us. He whirled around, looking for some sign of someone else, gave me an odd look, and kept going. With a sigh, I decided to just go along with him. He was obviously crazy today.

Eventually, after about five more minutes of rapid walking, we approached a curious looking staircase that I’d never seen before. He sat down on the top of it and patted his lap once I caught up. I looked at him incredulously. He just smiled. A bit awkwardly, I sat down on him, and we slid down the banister with great velocity. Halfway down, we were suddenly sprawled out in front of the kitchens. James leapt up, tickled the fruit portrait, and pulled me inside.

"Wow," was the first thing that popped out of my mouth. "What was that?"

"That was one of Hogwarts’ many delightful little secrets," he said, brushing himself off. "We’re actually not in the front part of the kitchens. We’re in the back part. That’s why there aren’t any house elves practically mauling us at the moment."

"But we came in through the fruit portrait, didn’t we?"

"We did, but when you go down that banister and arrive at a fruit portrait, somehow you still wind up in the back of the kitchens instead of the front."

"Insane," I said.

"But you like insane, don’t you?"

"You’re right. I do."

"I know," James said, and suddenly we both realized that we were standing very, very close to each other. "Lily," he murmured, "you’ve got a beautiful spark in you. You know that?"

I laughed, somewhat uneasily. What did _that_ mean? "Thank you," I replied, sounding much cooler than I felt, "so do you. And you’ve got beautiful eyes. I’ve never seen eyes quite like yours. They’re so... well, there isn’t even a word for them. They’re just wonderful."

"I feel excruciatingly special now," he smiled.

"That’s because you are," I said quietly.

He looked at me sharply, and we were quiet a moment. He seemed to be studying my face for something, and I just stared back at him, waiting for him to figure me out. Just when I thought he was going to say something to me about it, he turned away and started pawing his way through some metal shelves that hung on all the walls around us. Something inside my stomach twisted around unpleasantly, and I let out a breath I hadn’t even been aware I’d been holding.

"Just a minute," he said, not bothering to turn around and look at me. "I’m looking for something good to eat. What are you in the mood for? Something hot, something cold? Something sweet maybe?"

"Something sweet," I said rather dully, and sat down with my back against a wall. Why did I feel so embarrassed?

James rummaged around for a minute more and then triumphantly emerged from the shelves holding two chocolate cupcakes that looked freshly frosted. They had icing flowers decorating the top of them. He handed the white lily one to me, and kept the red rose one for himself. He sat down next to me, close but not touching, and licked the top of his cupcake.

I glanced at him but didn’t feel much like eating.

"Sometimes I think," James said slowly, "that there’s something going on between the two of us. Don’t you?"

Alarmed, I tried my hardest not to start breathing too hard. "What do you mean by that?" I asked much too quickly, taking a huge lick off the top of my cupcake to try and cover.

He gave me a funny look. "You know," he said, "it’s almost like we like each other or something."

"Oh, is it?" I asked, my heart pounding in my chest.

"Yeah," James paused to eat some more of his cupcake, and I shut my eyes. The whole word seemed to have stopped spinning—everything was so still. Neither of us said anything for quite some time. After the air seemed to have cleared a little, it was as if the subject had never come up at all. "It’s supposed to rain," James finally commented, breaking the long silence.

"Oh, I love the rain," was all I could say.

"I do too. Would you like to go out to the Quidditch Pitch maybe? We could watch it rain, or something."

"I’d love to," I said without hesitation, and took a big bite into my cupcake. A thousand butterflies started to swirl inside my stomach, and I was all too aware that my voice was much too soft to be mistaken for anything other than blatantly romantic.

James smiled and smudged the last of his icing onto my cheek. The touch was electrifying. The icing was faintly cool, and his finger was warm and delicate. I thought about kissing him right then. I looked at him, still half surprised that he’d rubbed icing on me, and in that moment wanted to kiss him so _badly_. I looked into his dizzy, fucking wonderful eyes and knew I’d give up everything just to taste him, just once... The whole world could drop dead and it wouldn’t matter, if I could just get one single kiss.

I set my cupcake on the ground and laid my hand on his. He didn’t flinch, didn’t move a centimeter. He laced his fingers in mine and swallowed hard so that I could see his Adam’s apple move just a tiny bit. "James..." I began.

"Shh," he said, squeezing my hand tightly. "Don’t ruin it."

I didn’t understand what he meant by that, but he slowly pulled me to my feet and swung the painting of the fruit open again. We stepped out into the hallway, which was thankfully deserted, and left our cupcakes in the kitchens. "Let’s not miss the rain," James whispered into my ear, and as the painting swung shut, we began to glide down the hall toward the Quidditch pitch. I briefly wondered what people would say if they saw him and I walking like this, walking hand in hand down the softly polished hallway, in the middle of a cloudy, crazy day, with these soft smiles so apparent on our faces...

But did it matter? No, I decided, in the long run it didn’t matter what anyone thought. All that mattered was that he and I were here, walking together like this now, in each other’s company and enjoying life the way it had always meant to be enjoyed.

This amazing, amazing boy had done so much for me since I’d met him. He had opened his entire world up to me without hesitation or reserve and had allowed me a precious gift; the knowledge of living. He had given me so much and asked for absolutely nothing in return. His friendship was unconditional. This boy, this boy I had always idolized, had pulled me into his idyllic wonderland. Everything he understood to be right and true was now a part of me. How could I ever thank someone for such a powerful gift? How could I possibly repay James for this afternoon? This afternoon of adventure, cupcakes, rain, and hand-holding? Words just could not describe my happiness.

We tiptoed and glided with a silence so pure that it sounded practiced. The only sound that came from us was the gentle tapping of our feet brushing the marble floor every now and again, but even that sounded as quiet and lulling as the rain itself soon would. Just as the gray sky began to spill downward we reached the big oak doors that would take us outside. James flung open the doors and with a bang, we had reached the solemnly beautiful green grounds of Hogwarts. Taking my hand once more, he and I began to run down and over the hills. We reached the Quidditch pitch out of breath, cold, and rather drenched, but neither of us minded much at all.

"This is wonderful," I gasped out, trying to restore my breathing to normal.

"It is," James agreed. "Arabella would love this, don’t you think?"

"I suppose," I smiled, but my thoughts were far from what _Arabella_ would enjoy. His warm hand slipped out of mine and we stood looking at each other, smiling, enjoying the wetness and the cold breeze that was accompanying the storm. James looked up quietly at the sky, still breathing slightly hard, and drank in a little of the rain water. I followed his example and began to spin around, letting my feet carry me over the well-manicured Quidditch lawn.

We acted like small children, inquisitive and skittish, first opening our eyes wide to the rain drops and then acting shocked when they splattered down on the tips of our noses. Somehow we enjoyed things quite separately—I regressed into a childlike requiem in which I was a little princess waiting out in the rain for my father to return home from war; the father I’d never known seemed tangible and godly. James, I was quite sure, had a more mature sense of adventure. He dreamed that he was older and a stately gentleman, a Quidditch all star examining the weather to determine whether or not the playing conditions would be in his team’s favor. All the same, we both imagined ourselves into a wonderful place of naïve similarity. I was grateful for the rain that day beyond belief.

It started to pour. Lost in my own reverie, I hadn’t noticed. James tugged on my wrist and pulled me over to locker rooms. I allowed myself to be pulled out of the rain like a small and quite helpless child, but I smiled all the while. We reached the covered security of the building and James laughed out loud.

"Don’t we look a mess?"

"We do," I said, unbothered. "Your hair is all dripping and clinging to your forehead and my eyeliner is probably running, and our clothes are all heavy with the rain and our cheeks are flushed like mad. Isn’t it beautiful?"

"Yes," James nodded, "it is."

He pulled his wand from his pocket and muttered a charm that let us into the Gryffindor team locker room. He flipped on the lights and motioned for me to follow him inside. Tucking my hair behind my ears, I did.

"It should be warmer in here," he said, and pulled off his robes without a thought. I stood, my back pressed up against the door, gawking.

His bare chest was exposed to me and I took a very sharp intake of breath. He turned to face me, dropping his robes on the ground, and tilted his head to one side. "What?" he asked, a funny look on his face.

"You don’t have a shirt on," I said simply. It was more than just him not having a shirt on. He also had no pants on. He just had a pair of highly rain-soaked boxers on, and they were white. And his body? His body was... wonderful. There were muscles and toned arms and he had abs that I’d only ever dreamed about. Fear seized me and I gulped deeply.

"Oh, is that all? Nothing you haven’t seen before," he laughed, and walked to a locker that was apparently his. He pressed his hand to it and it opened. He pulled out a spare pair of robes and threw them over his head. Noticing I hadn’t said another word, he slowly shut his locker and looked over his shoulder at me. "Are you uncomfortable being alone with me in this locker room, drenching wet?"

"Yes," I said blankly.

"I’m sorry. You can leave if you like. We can go back to the castle. I just thought it would be better to change into something dry and stay here until the storm finishes. It was starting to get violent..." he slowly sat down on a bench and folded his arms across his chest, studying my face with some interest.

"No, I don’t want to leave. You’re right. Staying here is better."

"Well, if you’re sure?"

"Yes, of course I am. I’m sorry. I’m just not used to seeing you practically naked, you know."

James laughed. "Well, I suppose that’s true. Want to change? I won’t look."

"Sure, if you’ve got any more extra robes lying around..." I shrugged, moving to the center of the room and wringing some of the water out of my hair. The rain had turned it so dark that it no longer looked its usual lovely red color. Now it looked almost as black as James’s.

James turned back to his locker and opened it again. From it he procured yet another extra pair of robes and tossed them at me. I caught them and examined them with a meticulous eye. I noticed that they would be rather big for me as they had undoubtedly been made especially for James’s boyishly tall and broad-shouldered figure, but they were good and warm and they smelled like him. As soon as he turned around, which he did with dignified politeness, I stripped off my wet garments and let them hit the floor with a mucky _thwuck_ sound. I pulled his robes over my head and then walked over to the bench where he was sitting and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Is it safe to turn around?" he asked.

"Yes," I smiled warmly. "Thanks for the change of clothes. You’re right. It’s much better like this."

We sat talking for well over an hour, but still the storm raged on. We talked of chess and professors and Mages and the summer and Melissa and clouds and Prefect duties and Quidditch and graduation. He told me wild stories of fun and fancy free and daring pranks and adventures that he and Sirius and Remus and Peter had in the works, and of his battles against Snape and the rest of the dastardly Slytherins. I couldn’t help but be amused when I imagined Lucius Malfoy as part of the dastardly bunch the Marauders fought against, but it was of little consequence. All that mattered was that James was clearly having the time of his life this school year. So, in a way, was I.

"Sirius and Remus have always been there for me," James was saying, idly wrapping a strand of my long hair around his index finger. "They support me utterly. There’s never been one instance in which I’ve ever had to doubt them. We keep no secrets from each other."

"Arabella and I are the same way," I laughed, but then abruptly paused. That wasn’t exactly true. I kept secrets from her and apparently she did from me as well. She hadn’t told me she liked Sirius just as I hadn’t told her I liked James. "Well, sometimes," I continued more seriously, "most of the time. There’re a few things we keep to ourselves, but I suppose that’s just what works best for us."

James nodded. "When Remus told Sirius and me about his condition, he was really afraid. He’d kept it from us for so many years... Sirius and I were hurt at first, and Peter too, that he hadn’t told us sooner. But I guess I can see why he kept it to himself. Some things like that are just too painful to mention, even to the closest friends you have."

I frowned. "What are you talking about?"

James froze. He untangled his finger slowly from my hair and looked at me tensely. "Forgive me, Lily, the rain has clearly gotten the best of me. I forgot who I was talking to for awhile."

"Excuse me?" I frowned harder. "What do you mean, Remus’s ‘condition’?"

"Nothing," James said sharply. "I mean nothing."

"James..."

"What?"

  
"What are you four hiding?"

"Lily, anything we’re ‘hiding’, we’re hiding for good reason. I know how curious you are but I’m pleading right now for you to forget everything I just said. Please don’t ask me questions that you aren’t ready to know the answers to. When and if Remus decides to let you know, you’ll know. But I’m sorry, this is one thing I can’t tell you."

"James, is he dying? Is Remus dying?"

He laughed, almost in relief. "Oh no, he’s not dying."

I stood up in wonder and vague disappointment that I wasn’t yet worthy enough to partake in the more serious part of the Marauders’ lives. I’d been thinking, sitting here alone with James, that I was close to him. Close to all of them. But now it seemed as if there was quite a bit I was still left out of... A feeling of sadness mixed with incurable curiosity began to stir together in my stomach and it was not a pleasant feeling in the least. What was so important that they felt compelled to hide it from me?

Did Arabella know...?

Uncomfortable, we waited for the rain to pass in awkward silence. As soon as the last rain cloud stopped its crying, we made our way resolutely back to the castle. This time we were most definitely not holding hands, but all the same, I did see James cast a few extremely nervous glances my way.

This was an interesting predicament, and to be quite frank, I did not like it. I did not like it at all.

 


	18. The Confession

 

** Deconstruct, a Memoir **

By Solarism

_ Chapter Seventeen—The Confession _

{This chapter’s song is: Dreams by The Cranberries.}

 

            I felt an intense need to be closer to him. I felt an intense need to be the only one he cared for, the only one he thought about out of the blue, and the only one he cared to have particularly deep conversations with. I wanted him to tell me his secrets and other people’s secrets and I wanted to be able to tell him all of mine in return. I wanted to confess to him so badly what I’d been feeling for him, but I just wasn’t sure how he’d react or even how to go about saying it. I was completely ambivalent.

            The way I saw it, one of three things was eventually going to happen. One, I would go mad from not being with him and be carted off to St. Mungo’s. Two, I would tell him that I liked him and then we would be boyfriend and girlfriend and things would be perfect. Or, three, he would tell me what he felt without me having to come to him first. Option one seemed too miserable to bear thinking about and option three seemed quite unlikely (at least for the moment), so I tried to force myself to carry out option two. It all sounded so simple in my head. I’d walk up to him, tell him I liked him, and kiss him on the lips to seal the deal. But every time I made up my mind to say something, my lips glued themselves together and my hands began to get clammy and sometimes I’d even get a headache.

            The days passed after our escapade to the kitchens and the Quidditch pitch with a tedious slowness that made me want to rip my own hair out. Every moment I came in contact with him made me feel a whole mixture of emotions, none of which seemed quite natural. I felt dizzy with adoration and respect, sick with worry and doubt, confident as he smiled at me, and heartbroken when his gaze would shift away. He had my heart on one very wild roller coaster and I believe I nearly died from the psychological exhaustion of it all.

            I finally worked out the courage to get him alone on the morning of February 14th, Valentine’s Day. We’d just come back to the common room after performing mandatory holiday celebration duties unique to the Prefects for this year and were worn out. We’d helped decorate the entire castle and had added extra touches of magic here and there with the use of our Mage rings. We were zapped of energy and just generally sluggish. Since we were in such sedated moods, I thought why not? Maybe I’d give it a go and pose my emotions to him. He was James. No matter what, I knew he’d understand.

            Sometimes in life it seems excruciatingly important to take that leap, that risk, that completely scary and possibly humiliating dive into the deep end. Once you’re brave enough to carry it through, you can never go back. You’re changed forever for the better or for the worse and you have to live with what you decided to do. That day I made my choice to tell James Potter that I liked him and I thought I was prepared to deal with the consequences and repercussions of my actions.

            I thought wrong.

 

& & & & & & & & & & & & &

            "James, can we talk for a minute?" I asked, quickly pushing the words out of my mouth before I could stop myself and think the better of my decision.

            "Sure," he nodded, collapsing into a big over-stuffed common room arm chair. He ran his long fingers through that pretty hair of his and gave me an interested smile.

            "Okay, well," I said, taking the seat across from him and sitting on the very edge, "I’ve been thinking."

            "You think quite a lot," James smiled even more congenially and put his hand fleetingly on my knee. "I like that about you."

            "Well, thank you," I said awkwardly. I wished he wouldn’t interrupt. Now I was thrown off, but there was nothing to do but dive right in again from a different angle now that I already had his attention.

            "Anyway, what were you saying?" he asked, the picture of a perfect audience.

            "I’ve been thinking," I repeated.

            "Yes," he nodded enthusiastically, raising his eyebrows for me to go on past this point.

            "I’ve been thinking a lot about all of the time that you and I spend together. And I’ve been thinking about all the deep conversations we’ve had, and all the adventures we’ve been on together."

            "Oh, me too," James assured me, assuming the conversation was going to lean toward something comfortable like a new idea for an afternoon outing, and so he settled back into his chair and closed his eyes. He looked quite like a cat snuggling up under its favorite sunbeam. I bit my lip. He clearly was not taking this so far the way I’d expected him to.

            "Remember how awhile ago we took that trip to the kitchens? And then out to the Quidditch pitch to play in the rain?"

            "Oh," he said, somewhat less comfortably. He opened his eyes.

            "Well," I said.

            "You aren’t mad about me not telling you about Remus, right? I’m really sorry about that. I thought you’d never want to talk to me again."

            "No, I’m not mad. I must admit I was a bit curious, but that’s beside the point."

            "Remember you promised me you wouldn’t go looking into it."

            "Yes, I know."

            "That’s alright then," he shut his eyes again, resuming his contented position. I made a little face in exasperation. I _did_ so wish he wouldn’t interrupt.

            "You see," I said in a sudden burst, "the more I’ve been thinking, the more I start to get the feeling that something you said that day in the kitchens was the truth. Rather, it was the truth at least for me."

            James perked up a bit at this, always one to be mildly surprised when someone told him he was right. "What do you mean, exactly?"

            "I mean," I faltered, starting to breathe hard. I stared into his eyes and took in everything I possibly could from them. Today they had a greenish hint to them that reminded me of a dark forest; the brown was deep and reflective with hardly any of its characteristic happy golden flecks. In his eyes I could see my own reflection; a tall but inelegantly thin young woman with large eyes and lips and a look of worry on her face.

            "Lily?" he said, sitting up.

            "I like you, James." There, it was out.

            "Is that all?" he laughed out loud. "I like you too, of course. You know that."

            He wasn’t taking this the right way and I quickly shook my head. "No, you don’t understand me. I _like_ you."

            "Oh," he said, and stopped his laughing immediately. His face turned unreadable and calm.

            I didn’t know what else to do, so I stood up, leaned over him, and gave him a clumsy kiss on the cheek. His skin was soft and smooth and it felt like everything I’d always imagined it would feel like against my lips. It wasn’t at all like Lucius’s cheek. His had been smooth too but never really soft. Of course he’d always been freshly shaven; it was just that _he’d_ always felt more like a man—the way you’d expect a man to feel anyway. James felt young and more alive somehow. I sank back down into my chair at last and sucked my lips in as far as they would go into my mouth while I waited for him to say something.

            "Oh," was all he said for the second time.

            I stared at him and my stomach slowly began to sink. Somewhere inside I knew this had gone terribly, terribly wrong but I was still clinging to a desperate hope he’d say something more. I stayed very quiet and tense and waited.

            "Oh," he said again, and then like a ruined man, seemed to crumple over and put his face in his hands. This alarmed me, and I suddenly had an overwhelming urge to bolt out the common room entrance and then out of Gryffindor Tower and then out of Hogwarts Castle altogether, eventually bolting out of Europe, and then eventually out of this world... But my legs would not move.

            Suddenly every little detail about the common room seemed to sharpen itself. I noticed how loudly the clock seemed to be ticking and how rich all the furniture was and the way the glass tables sparkled as the firelight hit them. I noticed James’s hair and how many strands it contained. They weaved in and out of each other in this silly little dance, and I noticed not for the first time how pretty his hands were. Suddenly, I felt exhausted.

            "Why?" he asked me, suddenly sitting up dead straight and looking me piercingly in the eye. _Dizzy, dizzy, dizzy, losing grip..._

__ How could he ask me something like that? All he says when I confess my feelings to him is ‘oh’, and then he wants to know why I like him. What do you say to a person when they ask you that when you’re already humiliated and when you already know that this doesn’t bode well? How do you spit out the words from the bottom of your slightly fractured heart and expect the person sitting in front of you to fully appreciate them?

            "Because," I said, "you are the most wonderful person I have ever met."

            "I see," James said, and set his mouth into a rigidly thin little line.

            "You... don’t like me back, do you?"

            "I thought you knew. I’ve always liked Arabella, actually."

            " _What_?"

            "I thought you knew. I’m sorry Lily, but I could’ve sworn I told you."

            "No," I said, feeling quite dizzy, "no, you must certainly didn’t."

            "God, I’m sorry. I didn’t think... well, I didn’t think you could ever have feelings for me. I didn’t think you thought of me that way."

            Now it was my turn to say, "Oh."

            "All those times you looked at me funny, was that what it was? It was because you have a _crush_ on me?" He stared at me in disbelief. I wanted to punch him or cry or something. Of course that was why, of _course_ it was. How could he ask that?

            "Yes," I said in a very small voice.

            "Why? Why do you have to like me? You’re ruining everything," he said with a peculiarly hurt tone in his voice. I stared at him with sudden blazing anger. _I_ was ruining everything? _I_ , the one who was laying my bleeding heart on the floor and watching him stomp on it, was the one who was ruining everything? I felt like screaming.

            I stood up, my body suddenly mobilized, and stared down furiously at him.

            "If you think that this is ruining everything, then fine. I’m sorry I mentioned it in the first place."

            "You’re not supposed to like me," he stared back with surprisingly equal anger in his beautiful, beautiful eyes.

            " _Fine_! Then I won’t anymore!" I practically yelled, unable to believe his continued audacity.

            " _Fine_!" he yelled back, looking the fiercest I’d ever seen him, "We can just forget that you ever became stupid and got _feelings_ for me!"

            "While we’re at it," I screamed, numb to everything except the terrible rage inside of me, "why don’t we just forget about ever being friends in the first place?"

            "If that’s the way you want it," he seethed, "then I haven’t got a problem with it."

            " _Fine_!" I shrieked.

            " _Fine_!" he shouted.

            I ran away from him faster than I’d ever run in my life.

& & & & & & & & & & &

            I didn’t know where I was going. I just ran. I was furious and miserable and scared and I had no idea what I was doing. I ran through hallways and corridors and down staircases and up other ones, I slammed doors as I went and pounded my way through deserted classrooms and the Great Hall, and past many, many shocked looking students. I ripped off my Prefect’s badge as I rounded a corner and flung it as hard as I could onto the ground, not slowing down even for an instant. I passed Sirius and Remus, both of which backed up against the wall and stared open-mouthed at me, but I didn’t pause even for them. I just had to keep running.

            I ran through doors and suddenly was outside on the castle grounds. I ran over the hills and down past the lake and did everything in my power to avoid that damned Quidditch pitch where _he_ had taken me.

            Quite without warning, I tripped and began to roll quickly down one of the steeper grassy hills Hogwarts had to offer. By the time I landed at the bottom I was bruised and sore all over and I was crying. I pressed my face into the grass and wished for all the world I could just sink down into the ground and never come out again. _He likes Arabella, not me! He likes her, he likes her, he hates me!_

__ "Stupid girl!" I yelled at myself, sobbing now, feeling the most alone I’d ever felt. How could I have been so idiotic? He invites me to his house and kisses my forehead under some God damned mistletoe and I think it’s a marriage proposal! He holds my hand and I think he’s promising to be mine forever! He gives me a cupcake so I think he’s handing me a ring! What a stupid, stupid, stupid girl I was. Stupid, stupid, _stupid_.

            How had I ever thought even for one fleeting instant that there was a chance the brilliant and amazing and handsome and perfect James Potter could ever like me back? I was nothing but a Muggle-born, ridiculous, whiny, bitch of a girl that couldn’t even form a coherent sentence around him. Why would he ever be attracted to someone like me? How had I ever mistaken his signals?

            He had as good as told me he liked Arabella. He’d always mention her, always talk about her when he was with me, and God, I’d seen the look in his eyes when she’d gone off to Hogsmeade with Sirius. I saw the way he looked at her and how they laughed. She was so pretty. She was so perfect, just like him. My two best friends. How could I have not have realized...?

            I wanted to die of humiliation and hurt. I sucked in some air and held my breath for as long as I could. Maybe if I was lucky I could asphyxiate myself. I kept gasping for air through my sobs though, so not even that would work.

            Miserable and bruised, I turned over and lay looking up at the putrid blue sky wishing I’d never met James Potter. Tears ran down my cheeks as I lay feeling sorry for myself, watching the clouds mill by.

_             Happy fucking Valentine’s Day, and here’s to you Miss Evans, the only one spending this day truly alone. _

__ I became aware of someone walking toward me out of the corner of my eye. Gathering what shards of dignity I had left, I turned my head to see who it was. In the instant before I saw who it was, I both fervently hoped that it would and wouldn’t be James. Part of me would have loved to see him come running to me to apologize for his rude behavior, and yes, perhaps swoop me up in his arms and kiss me all better and like me after all. The other part of me would’ve rather had my limbs ripped off piece by piece than have him see me like this so soon after our fight and my confession.

            It wasn’t him. Of course it wasn’t. It was, in fact, someone who looked quite a lot like him, though. It was Sirius Black.

            I remained very still until Sirius stood towering over me. He looked down at me with a frustratingly calm expression, much like James had, and waited for me to gain back some of my pride. I cautiously moved to a sitting position, careful not to quite look him in the face, and gazed down at my feet. He then sat down beside me and stared serenely out ahead of us.

            I looked where he was looking. There wasn’t much to see. Just another hill and a tree that I’d been lucky not to hit while I was rolling.

            "Are you quite done?" he asked in a soft voice after a moment of silence.

            I looked at him through my teary, burning eyes and blotchy face and nodded.

            "Alright then," Sirius said kindly and handed me back my Prefect’s badge.

            "Thanks," I said, taking a shuddering breath and trying to calm myself down. I reattached it to my robe and drew my knees in close to my chest. I felt very embarrassed.

            "Now, I’m going to tell you about the strangest thing Remus and I just saw. There we were, back up at the castle, calmly debating over which broomstick is better when it comes down to speed—clearly Remus has no correct knowledge of such things, the poor boy—when all of a sudden we were very rudely interrupted. There was this redheaded demon that came flying around the corner _so_ fast that we had to slam up against the dirty old wall to avoid being knocked over. This thing was running so wildly it didn’t even pause to see if it’d mowed us down or not, but lucky for it, it hadn’t."

            "I’m sorry," I said, wiping my eyes and sniffing hard.

            "So then Remus and I got to thinking that maybe this redheaded demon thing wasn’t really a demon at all but actually a 5th year Gryffindor Prefect girl named Lily Evans. We picked up her Prefect badge off the floor because for some crazy reason something had possessed her to try and get rid of it. I put it in my pocket and said good bye to Remus and got it in my mind to try and look for this Lily girl. I followed the direction I saw her running and then followed the footprints she left on the grass all the way down to here, and what do I find at the end but you? Not demon at all but instead one of my dear friends and the most beautiful girl in the world."

            I couldn’t help but give a little choked peal of laughter.

            "Why were you crying, Lily?"

            "James," I said simply. His name seemed to explain everything, and Sirius nodded dejectedly.

            "I found out yesterday. I was going to tell you, but I had to deal with feelings of my own first, and then... I saw you running."

            "I told him I liked him."

            "Ooh, ouch," he said, wincing. "I knew you did, but I didn’t think you’d tell him on Valentine’s Day, of all days."

            "I know," I said dully, "it was a bit idiotic of me, wasn’t it? Valentine’s Day!"

            "Well, yes. We guys don’t do well under such pressure. This damned holiday has all you girls in a right tizzy. It’s a bit uncomfortable," Sirius said, tilting his head to one side as he was so fond of doing. "But it wasn’t stupid of you to tell him altogether. You didn’t know he liked Arabella, and James is such a flirt that even I thought he liked you at one point. I was really confused when he started bursting out about Arabella yesterday."

            "That must have been hard," I said, taking heart in the fact that I wasn’t the only one who was hurt James didn’t like me.

            "It was. He’s my best friend in the entire world and I’d do anything for him, but I really like that girl. I saw her first, you know?" he laughed.

            "And I saw him first," I laughed a little too, acknowledging how dumb we sounded. But that made me think of Arabella and James being together as a couple, and the thought immediately mortified me. "Do you think she likes him back?"

            "I don’t know. I thought she liked me, and I know you thought she did too, but it’s all too possible she’s like old James herself. Maybe she flirts with me but doesn’t really like me. Maybe they’ve been having an illicit love affair for months, I don’t know."

            This made me grin. Somehow, although I’d expected thoughts of this to be horrible and painful and gruesome, the thought of James sleeping with Arabella and her moaning into his mouth as he kissed her only sounded quite frankly hilarious.

            "I think I’m going to be okay now," I said after I cleared my mind of the thought.

            "So quickly? I didn’t even have to break into my poor-Sirius-is-single-too jokes!"

            I smiled. "Do you mind it much?"

            "What, being single?"

            "Yes, being single."

            "Well, no, not usually," he said, closely examining the fine layer of dirt under his fingernails. He bit his lip. "Well, sometimes. But we all know that I’m so sexy that I could have anyone I wanted in this school, right?"

            I laughed again. "Yes, of course."

            "Let’s test this, shall we? Lily Evans, please be my girlfriend."

            I laughed some more. "No."

            "But I shall shine your shoeeeees!"

            I reached out and enveloped Sirius in the largest hug I could muster. I held him tightly and pressed my face against his neck, smelling his smell. He smelled like Quidditch and chocolate cake and something vaguely smoky—like Filibuster fireworks. He wrapped his arms around me without hesitation and hugged me strongly back.

            We stayed that way—almost cuddling—for the longest I’d ever hugged anyone. Once my back started to hurt, I let go and kissed him on the cheek.

            He looked mildly surprised, but he smiled anyway.

            "You’re the second person I’ve done that to today."

            "What? Strangled?" Sirius raised an amused eyebrow.

            "Shut up, you liked it. No, kissed on the cheek."

            "Oh, God? You kissed James?"

            "On the cheek," I nodded demurely.

            "Well, gee, now I feel special. I’m your rebound boy, eh?"

            I laughed once more. "Oh, yes, Sirius. And I’m your rebound girl."

            "Now will you be my girlfriend?"

            "No!"

            He laughed and shrugged. "Worth a try, right?"

            "Thank you so much for everything," I said.

            "I’ve only been sitting here twenty minutes. I wasn’t really helping or anything, so there’s no need to thank me."

            "Oh, but you were. I needed a hug more than anything."

            "You did?"

            "Yes."

            "Well, imagine that. I came through for once."

            "For once," I smiled affectionately.

            Sirius pulled his wand out of some inner pocket of his robes and began to fiddle with it. He stared down interestedly at the beautiful polished cherry wood. I looked at it too because the silence was enjoyable and marveled at its beauty. I think everyone’s wand somewhat resembles the person it belongs to—more than people give wands credit for anyway. Mine is willow and just over 10", swishy and nice for charms work... which is rather how I am, actually. Tall and willowy and comfortable.

            I’ll never forget the beauty of Sirius’s wand though. It was long, longer than mine at about a good 13", thin, elegant, and perpetually shiny. Looking at his wand was like looking into his soul in a lot of ways. Sirius was a very sophisticated individual with a love of all things attractive and fun. He doggedly pursued a good laugh and when he was needed was quite a good friend.

            I came to realize he wasn’t staring at his wand anymore, but was instead watching _me_ stare at it. I laughed.

            "I take it you like what you see," he grinned.

            "It’s long," I said, half-snorting at the innuendo.

            "And rather thick, don’t you think?"

            "Over-compensating much?"

            "I don’t know. Wanna find out?" he playfully reached down and started to unbuckle his belt. I laughed even harder and shielded my eyes just in case he really did decide to ‘whip it out’, as it were.

            "I’m kidding," Sirius said amiably, and stood up. "However, I’m getting quite sick of sitting on this grass. There are gnats _everywhere_ and I’m sure this intense sunshine is ruining my complexion. Let’s go back inside, huh?"

            I stopped chuckling abruptly and shook my head. "No, James is still there. I left him sitting in the common room. I bet you he’s still sitting there, in fact... He was kind of really shocked."

            Sirius gave me a sympathetic sidewise glance, but said nothing except, "We don’t have to go back to the common room."

            "Where are we going, then?"

            "Anywhere you feel like."

            "The Astronomy Tower. I could do with a quick rebound screw," I joked.

            Sirius put his tongue in his cheek and raised his eyebrows, "Good golly, miss Molly—er, Lily—you’re quite the sexual little vixen today, aren’t you?"

            "It’s Valentine’s Day," I said rather glumly.

            "So we’ve established," he shrugged and motioned for me to get up too. I sighed and did despite the fact I really didn’t feel like going anywhere near that stupid castle again anytime soon.

            "Now, where to, my dear?" Sirius asked.

            "Can we go to the library? I know it sounds lame, but I really don’t know where else to go. It’s just about the only place I’m pretty sure I could hide out forever in if I wanted to."

            "Well," Sirius shrugged again, "we could. But I think instead I’ll take you somewhere special. Somewhere not even James currently knows about."

            "Oh God, lead the way then," I half-smiled.

            He just laughed and started up the hill, so I followed. When we reached the top of it, I paused for a second and grabbed his wrist. "You know," I said, "you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to hang out with me or anything. I appreciate you coming down here, but you shouldn’t feel any obligation to baby sit me or anything..."

            Sirius turned around and gave me a mild look. "Can’t a guy spend the afternoon with a good friend?"

            We smiled and I followed him again.

            As it ended up we arrived at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. When Sirius showed no sign of slowing down or stopping or making any sharp turns, I plunged in the brush and trees where all light was choked out, following right after him without hesitation. I would’ve stopped and asked him just where he thought he was leading me, but he was doing for me something really quite compassionate and I would be lonely without him. Plus, secretly, a part of me had always wanted to see what was inside the Forbidden Forest—Prefect’s badge or no.

            Twigs fell all over my shoulders and hair and got caught, and nettles seemed to jump up and attach themselves in a most pesky manner to my robes. I didn’t mind, though. Somehow walking through all the dense forest felt cleansing.

            After about fifteen minutes of silent and rather hazardous walking, we reached one of the grandest old trees I’d ever seen. Sirius approached it slowly, almost with a stalking grace, and stopped right before he reached the closest protruding root. I stopped next to him, a little out of breath, and followed his line of sight. He stared up majestically at it as if it were the most wonderful thing in the world, so I did too.

            "This," he finally announced, "is my tree."

            I sniffed, a bit confused, and looked at him waiting for him to say something else—except he didn’t. So I acknowledged that it was indeed his tree, and went back to staring at it.

            He spread his arms quite like a sorcerer and closed his eyes, smiling in a sort of odd fashion. I watched him skeptically out of the corner of my eye. He walked blindly toward the old tree and wrapped his arms around it, giving it one of his strongest hugs.

            I just blinked.

"Well, come on," he said a bit loudly, "you’ve got to greet it too or it won’t like you much for being rude."

            So I followed his lead, walked around to the other side of it, and hugged it. Even with both of us spreading our arms out as far as they could go, there were still many feet of trunk separating our fingers from touching on each side. After what seemed like forever, Sirius ceremoniously stepped back, opened his eyes, and laughed at me.

            "Well, you’re silly. Why are you hugging a tree?"

            I blinked and walked back toward him. "Because you told me to."

            "No, I let off right now and yet you were still hugging it for a minute. Silly girl."

            I just had to laugh.

            "Hm, okay," Sirius said with a grin, "I think we’ve accomplished what we came to accomplish. Let’s go."

            "Wait, what?" I asked, a little put out. "That’s it?"

            "Duh," Sirius said, and without another word, led me out of the forest.

            He was crazy sometimes.

& & & & & & & & & & &

I eventually had to reenter the common room, because, you know, that was the only way to get to the dorm in which I slept. I prayed James wouldn’t be there, and much to my chagrin, as soon as I stepped through the portrait, I saw him. He had changed seats since I had run out on him, and now sat by the fire, doing homework. His books and quills and parchments were spread haphazardly all over the floor, and he seemed to be blocking out the hum of chatter that was coming from the rest of the students in the room. I ignored them too, because all I could see was him.

            My eyes locked on the back of his head and I knew that he could sense me.

            Sirius, who was behind me, gently pulled me to the side so he could step through the portrait too, and then got close to me to pull a twig from my hair. I might’ve imagined it, because I was a little shaken up, but I think he might’ve whispered something into my ear that sounded quite like, "It was lovely."

            Then, putting on a jovial face, he bounded over to where James was sitting and collapsed into the chair opposite him. James laughed loudly at something and Sirius laughed back, and James didn’t bother to turn around and notice me. I slowly made my way to the staircase, and right before I started to go up it, I couldn’t help but turn around one more time.

            Someone was looking at me alright, but it wasn’t James. It was Sirius. He rolled his eyes in James’s direction while James wasn’t looking and mouthed "go" at me. I sighed, and went.

            Things had definitely just changed; I certainly didn’t need the painful pit in the bottom of my stomach to tell me that.

            As I ascended, the pit only sunk deeper and deeper and deeper... until finally, it was so deep, I just swallowed and forgot about it.

            Tomorrow would be a new day, or so I hoped.


	19. Shame

** Deconstruct, a Memoir **

By Solarism

_ Chapter Eighteen—Shame _

{This chapter’s song is: The Skies Won’t Fall by Foundation.}

 

 

            I woke up the morning after my confession to devastation. I cried for an hour into my pillow and missed my first class of the day because I was so beside myself. Sirius had temporarily shifted my misery, but it came back in full force in the morning as Arabella tried to shake me awake. I wouldn’t tell her what was wrong—in fact I couldn’t even properly look at her because everything about her reminded me of James rejecting me—so she went down to breakfast without me, puzzled and upset. She came back after our first class mortified.

            "Is that why you’re so upset, Lily? Of course it is. God damn it," she said in one big rush, slamming the door unceremoniously behind her. Before I could collect my wits about me, she had bounded over to my bedside and stood looking down at me, almost crying.

            "You know?" I asked.

            "I went down to breakfast and as it turns out, the whole school knows. You didn’t exactly do it privately; maybe you thought you did, but the whole school knows because of some damn second years that were watching."

            "Oh God," I moaned, feeling even worse. I felt the tears flood into my eyes once again.

            "I am so sorry," Arabella said in a high and emotional voice. "I’m so sorry, I didn’t know the stupid twit liked me, I didn’t. I didn’t, I didn’t. Oh please, please don’t hate me, please..."

            I shook my head as the first tear fell. "I don’t hate you," I said, starting to cry most unattractively.

            "I don’t like him back. I swear to god I don’t. I like Sirius; I’ve always liked Sirius. Why did this have to _happen_?"

            I would’ve said something to express my gratitude that she at least didn’t like James back, except I couldn’t find my voice amid all the unhappiness that was flooding over me.

            "Oh God, Lily, when I went down there to breakfast everyone stared at me like they hated me. It was the scariest thing I’d ever seen. They looked like they all wanted to murder me, and everyone started giggling and whispering and all this shit as soon as I walked in... and I didn’t know... I just didn’t know..." she said frantically, collapsing onto the bed with me and burying her face into my stomach. I lay there crying with her, and out of impulse to at least show her that it was okay, I put my hands on her hair and let her get everything out.

            "No one would tell me anything and James and Sirius and Remus and Peter weren’t there. God damn them, they were sleeping in or something, I don’t know. _Lucius_ had to come and tell me. Lucius! He rushed me out of there so fast; God, he was so nice, he got me out of there away from all the staring and told me everything. Then James came and I confronted him and he said he liked me and I slapped him. I slapped him so good, Lily, you would’ve been so proud."

            This made me cry a little harder, so we just stopped talking and threw a joint tantrum. When finally all of our sniffs and sobs started to subside, she sat up with her face all red and puffy, and hugged me tight to her. I pressed my face into her dark black hair and nearly squished her with love.

            We sighed and sniffled and pulled apart finally, feeling all the better for getting our tears out.

            "What do you want to do now?" she asked somewhat tentatively.

            "I’m not quite sure yet," I said, "but one thing is for sure. There is no way in hell I’m _ever_ talking to James Potter again."

            "Alright," Arabella tipped her head into a nod, "sounds good to me."

& & & & & & & & & & &

            All of March passed in a complete blur. I avoided absolutely everyone and spent most of my time with Arabella, feeling lonely but appreciative for her company. She shunned James as much as I did like the wonderful best friend she was, so we got along quite well saying nasty things about him behind his back. I took quite a fast liking to mocking the ridiculous way his stupid hair stuck up in the back. He looked messy and boyish; and we all knew that _men_ who looked more like, say, Lucius Malfoy... were all the more sexier.

            Our favorite Marauder became Sirius, with a healthy dose of Remus on the side. While carefully ignoring James’s influence on the fantastic foursome, we praised Sirius for his devilish good looks and Remus for his charm. I got to hear lots of pleasant little bits about the time Arabella spent with Sirius, but she was careful to tell me only when I was in the best of moods so as to not make me lonely that I didn’t have anyone to romance with. Aria Figg was one of the most tactful people I’d ever met.

            Sirius apparently hadn’t been fazed by James’s love declaration, and I was glad. Arabella said that they still talked all the time and she told me about the little conversations they’d have late at night in the common room after I went to bed. Sometimes this made me sad because it felt like I was weighing them down a bit. Did she feel such an obligation to be with me all the time that she completely cut out all of her time with Sirius? Sometimes I hated James passionately for doing this to his best friend and to mine and to me, and other times I knew that it had really been my fault for reading the signals so blindly. Interestingly, for one reason or another, Arabella and Sirius still were not officially together. It made me feel wretched to think I had something to do with that.

            I sidestepped Lucius and quit attending my own gambling nights to do so. Aria took them over well enough—just until I was feeling more social, she insisted—but it really burned me that even the King of the Slytherins (my ex-fling) knew so much about my indiscretions with James. He’d fought James over me, only because he was mad with jealousy, and I’d hated him for it. It’s true that we had mended things through that letter of his and all of that, but I still just didn’t have it in me to see him. Somehow I knew that looking him in the eye would be like an admittance of failure. I had tried to stray from him and I had failed. Bad Lily, bad—terrible.

            I spent chance moments with Sirius too, and he made me laugh. We would catch each other’s eyes a lot and although we didn’t quite spend time together like we had that one day with his tree, it was almost like we shared something of a special bond together. And he always, _always_ made sure that I smiled at least once a day. When we passed each other in the hall, sometimes he would shove clumsy one-lined notes into my hand that read silly little things like ‘I know you might miss ballroom dancing and waltzing with James, but if you get too bored, you can always come waltz your way into my pants!’. Which of course would make me giggle into my fist.

            I never told Arabella about the sexual camaraderie that went on between him and me, however, mostly because I knew he wasn’t quite serious. Sirius was never quite serious, if you catch my serious drift.

            As time progressed and I hid myself from everything except studying and Prefect duties (the only times I _ever_ saw James that month), I slowly stopped being so mortified and so devastated. After a week most people had forgotten about my embarrassing and heart-wrenching confession. People had moved onto new disgusting topics of gossip, like what the Ministry was planning on doing on all the death threats that were now rolling in from all over Europe. The Daily Prophet and all the other wizarding newspapers and magazines smeared threats of gore all over their headlines; it got to the point where I didn’t even pick up a paper anymore. The rest of the student body talked about it so much I didn’t have to.

            Loneliness began to set in. Toward the end of March I disentangled myself from Arabella and roamed around the castle grounds alone a lot. I spent a lot of time reevaluating my position in the world and more specifically at Hogwarts itself. I realized that I was just a student almost done with my education who would leave in two years for good, and after that I’d never have to look back. Once we graduated I’d probably never have to come into contact with any of these people anymore if I didn’t want to—I could just bury myself being an Auror and dedicate the rest of my life to hunting down evil. Perhaps I’d even take a vow of celibacy, or otherwise just go lesbian.

            Turning lesbian seemed like quite a nice thought now that I knew that even without James, somehow I had to keep living. I couldn’t quite imagine liking another boy for the rest of my life and in my overdramatic state of mental health, I was beginning to already imagine myself as an old spinster babysitting Arabella’s beautiful grandchildren...

            It’s lucky that someone had enough common sense to see how bad and sorry for myself I was getting, or else I don’t know what would’ve happened. But one day, at the very end of the month, someone approached me and the result of the conversation that therefore ensued would change the entire path of the next year of my life.

& & & & & & & & & & & & &

            "Lily, you’ve been avoiding me, haven’t you?" Lucius Malfoy said curiously with a little acidic smile. His grayish eyes burned into me and commanded my attention for the first time in quite awhile, and I knew with a sigh I had to finally do the one thing I’d feared. I had to talk to him and acknowledge that I’d been wrong about the whole James Potter ordeal.

            He had caught me as I was wandering out of the library with about a thousand heavy books to read. That day I had figured if I couldn’t have a happy life, I could at least take solace in plenty of books in which there _was_ a happy ending. Lucius happened to be passing by with a few of his Slytherin cronies. He waved them quickly away when he saw me, and without a word took all my books and began to carry them for me. He’d asked me to come and walk with him for a little while, and when I’d tried to make excuses, he’d just ignored me and walked off with the books I’d just checked out. Since I’d rather humiliate myself all over again than suffer the wrath of Madam Pince, I had to follow him. He eventually led me to the very same tree that we had once loved to kiss under, and here we now stood under its shade, finally at the moment of truth.

            "Yes," I said rather impatient for the conversation to end already, "I’ve been avoiding you. You and everyone else in this God damn school, if you hadn’t noticed."

            "Oh, I noticed. I was just surprised that I was also someone you chose to isolate. I thought that I’d made it clear in my letters and previous enticements that you could always turn to me, particularly when having problems with Potter (or any other person for that matter), but I suppose you failed to catch my not-so-subtle drift. You were always a smart girl, Lily, and I think you’re only pretending to be stupid now by doing all of this silent treatment, moody bitch crap. What I’d like to know is why."

            "Are you demanding an apology or something?" I frowned, crossing my arms. He sure liked to play the big brother role a lot.

            "No, I’m demanding an explanation. It’s common knowledge in every house what happened between you and that despicable _Potter_ —" here Lucius paused to grimace, as if the very word was poison on his lips, "—between you and that despicable Potter bastard. I know you had feelings for him, if that’s what you call them. I knew it the day I dueled with him and you went screaming and kicking to his rescue. Your little Gryffindor hero, right?"

            "Don’t be bitter, Lucius," I said, feeling rather down, "it doesn’t suit you in the slightest."

            "I’m not being bitter," he said with a slight glare, "but you know that I disapprove of what you did and felt. It was pure injudiciousness on your part. But... I’ve already forgiven you. What I’m after is why you’re still moping around this school like a kicked little bitch."

            "Thank you, Lucius; your vocabulary has never been more colorful, I see."

            "You’re avoiding my question. Answer it. Why?"

            "I’ve been avoiding you because I didn’t want to have to have this conversation. I don’t like the fact that things didn’t work out for me with James, and I really don’t need you rubbing it in my face, okay? I get it. I get that I shouldn’t have ever stopped being with you for him. I get it plenty, so you can just ease off, alright?"

            He looked at me coldly for a long and uncomfortable moment, and then shortly shook his head. "See, it wasn’t that hard to tell me. I’m not trying to rub it in your face, but I’m hurt that you feel like this about me. Am I really that horrible? Is he really that much better?"

            "No," I said cautiously, "it’s not that you’re _that_ horrible or that James is that much better. It’s just that I’m afraid of disappointing even just one more person, and I wasn’t sure if I could handle the look in your eyes during a confrontation. You give the nastiest looks sometimes, you know."

            Lucius looked surprised, and let out a short laugh. "Only you, Evans, can stand here and have such a pseudo-intelligent conversation with me on such a painful subject. Only you can still shock me."

            "Is that a good thing?" I only half-smiled.

            "Intelligence, even pseudo-intelligence in this case, is always a good thing."

            "Why do you call it pseudo-intelligence, as if it’s not really real?"

            "Well, it’s real I suppose. You’ve been acting stupid lately, to put it as blatantly as I possibly can; everyone can see it... But as I said before, you’re not a stupid girl. You’re a very smart one with a good head for business."

            "Business," I said, biting my lip. "Is business really all that important? I don’t even attend my own gambling sessions anymore. I leave Arabella in charge of them and I’ve ceased to show up. I can’t take the heat, I guess."

            "I know you haven’t been coming to them. I have, and people have been asking for you. Especially Mundungus Fletcher, that sorry fuck. Everyone misses their golden girl; they wonder what happened to their complimentary lap dance."

            My eyes went wide with impulsive anger, but fact won over passion, and I finally sighed. It was true. I had given out lap dances like candy and had used sex appeal for money. I was nothing better than a common whore, except probably slightly more discreet and with better hair. I thought about the regulars, the people whose money I’d been taking for years, and realized that a part still buried deep within me had missed them too. "Maybe I’ll go again," I said hesitantly, lowering my eyes to my shoes to think.

            "I think people would like that," Lucius said, smiling. When he smiled his whole face became softer and more open and easier to read. This was why he rarely allowed himself to find things pleasurable.

            I shrugged uneasily and wished I could just rest my poor, on edge body against the trunk of the tree. Lucius wouldn’t approve of that though; that would be showing weakness and weakness is to a Slytherin what blood in the water is to an army of crocodiles.

            "Well," Lucius finally said slowly, "are you done with all this Potter business now at least? Did you get it out of your system?"

            "Yes," I said truthfully, and I felt horrible about that. I didn’t _want_ to get it out of my system.

            "That’s excellent because I’ve missed you a terrible load. I’ll curse that jackass a million times over for you if you want me to. My family’s got ties to people with high places on the school board—I can do anything I want. Just say the word, and Potter will be as good as dead. We could mess up that face of his a lot too, probably permanently."

            I gave him a sharp glance, but did consider it for a moment. "No," I finally said, doing the ‘right thing’, "that won’t be necessary, but thank you very much for the offer."

            "Keep in mind it still stands, any time you decide differently."

            "I appreciate it," I said, appraising him with one all-encompassing look.

            He’d grown taller and his new hair style (more shaggy and less prim) made him look more handsome than he ever had. His glorious lips seemed to parade about as he spoke, and his perfectly delicate eyebrows were becoming more and more set on his forehead. He wasn’t as expressive facial wise as he used to be, but I’d always expected him to grow more into the image his family wanted for him. He was expected, as a Malfoy and as a powerful Slytherin, to be cold and collected and unruffled. He had to be _suave_.

            Lucius was good at doing what he had to do and being what he had to be.

            He was everyone’s everything, just like that.

            "I have to go now," he said, handing me back my books but letting a small and secretive smile escape his lips as he did so, "but I definitely want to see you some more later. Is there any possibility of that?"

            "Of course," I said, pressing the books to my chest and frowning a little, "I always have time for my friends."

            He leaned down and kissed me softly and sensually on the jaw. I was surprised at the gentleness and sincerity in his touch—my eyes went wide and I nearly dropped the books altogether. He then kissed me on either cheek and whispered into my ear, "Smile, Lily… You’re beautiful when you smile..."

            It was all I could do to not break into a grin.

            He left me standing under the tree, and now I did lean against the trunk, if only to collect my thoughts and nerves. Just as I was thinking that maybe I really had been wrong to ever stop being with Lucius—he was wonderful once you forgave him the sins he had had thrust upon him—I happened to glance up to the castle and into the nearest window, the one that looked down on the grounds from the Gryffindor common room.

            A tall, black-haired figure stood there, staring down at the exact spot I was standing. In the blink of an eye, he was gone, and with him my heart slowly sank all over again.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & &

Another extremely unexpected person called me aside later that day just after dinner as I was about to retire to the common room for another long night of studying. I’d gotten used to pouring myself into my studies and into the novels I got from the library; it was my only solace when people were sleeping or off doing things more important than babysitting me. As for myself, I’d read somewhere that Napoleon managed only four hours of sleep a night (and look at how powerful, albeit evil, he’d become), so that’s what I usually ended up averaging too. Four hours of dreadful dreams of a hauntingly handsome face with the most beautiful, dizzy brown eyes anyone had ever imagined...

            I walked leisurely down the grand hallways, half-interested in the suits of armor (which were for some reason lovely shades of red and gold—probably the Marauders’ doing, actually) but more just daydreaming about the latest romance novel I’d started reading. I didn’t notice that someone was walking beside me until that someone began to speak.

            "Penny for your thoughts," said Remus Lupin, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

            "Oh _God_!" I gasped, my poor heart beating faster than any heart should have to. "You scared me!"

            "I’m sorry," he apologized with a slightly bewildered smile. 

            "That’s alright," I said, holding one hand up and catching my breath.

            We paused a bit, but eventually I gave him a stern look and all was back to normal.

            "Have you noticed our little remodeling act on the suits of armor?" Remus said as we began to walk again in something of a companionable closeness. Companionable closeness didn’t seem natural to me anymore.

            "Yeah, it did sort of catch my eye," I admitted, pushing the title of ‘Prefect’ out of mind.

            "It was James’s idea," Remus said casually, as if dropping _his_ name didn’t make me sick inside.

            "Oh," I acknowledged.

            "Actually," Remus pressed on, cutting straight to the point, albeit a little uncertainly, "James was what I wanted to talk to you about if you have the time."

            "I have the time," I said, my guts suddenly tying themselves in knots, "but I’m not sure I particularly favor the subject matter you have in mind."

            "I know this isn’t exactly the most tactful of conversations to have with you right now, but I wanted to check up on how you were doing and to hear things from your point of view maybe. I wanted to let you know that like Sirius, and Peter as well I’m sure, I’m still here for you whenever you need me."

            "Thank you, Remus," I said without a smile, "I appreciate that."

            "You’re very welcome. Is it okay then if we talk while I walk you back to the common room?"

            "I suppose if you really want to that badly," I said somewhat coldly. I didn’t really know why I was acting so standoffish—just perhaps because I didn’t know Remus Lupin as well as I knew Sirius or James, and perhaps because I’d never expected him (of all people) to come and try to comfort me. Lucius, yeah, okay, in my wildest imagination maybe there had been a glimmer of a guess that he might try to placate me. Arabella surely would as well, as she was herself in the center of all the drama too. Even Sirius I could conceive would plausibly try to console me... but Remus? He was one of the last people I’d expected to approach me if only because he was someone that I’d assumed would just slip through the cracks right along with my friendship with James.

            Still, Remus had always been very kind to me and we’d always gotten along well. I regretted being so snippy almost instantly and quickly added, "It’s a bit of a touchy subject but of course I’ll talk to you, Remus. What do you want to know?"

            He gave me a grateful look and the words posed on the end of his tongue were something akin to sympathy. He took a few quiet seconds to articulate things properly, and then flourished out a very delicate and probing question. "All outside facades and showcases aside, what are you going through deep down inside over this whole issue with James?"

            I appreciated his dexterity at empathic conversation and so decided to answer him as honestly as I could bring myself to. "I’m feeling both humiliated and abandoned. You weren’t there, obviously, to witness our confrontation, but I’m sure by now you must’ve heard secondhand what went down, so you can probably guess why."

            "I’ve only heard bits and pieces. Do you think you could clarify it for me? I tried to get it out of James but he won’t talk about it at all."

            "Oh?" I asked bitterly, slightly piqued. "He’s pretending the whole situation doesn’t exist, is he? Charming. Really charming."

            "I didn’t say that," Remus calmly shook his head as we turned a corner and started up a flight of stairs. Four steps later, he glanced at me. "Are you comfortable with clarifying? For my sake?"

            I sighed, but how could I deny such a simple request? "Well," I began, "After we got done decorating on Valentine’s Day I pulled him aside in the common room and basically flat out told him I liked him. He said ‘oh’ a lot and then got rather incredulous, telling me I was ruining everything or something. Whatever _that_ meant."

            "Ooh, ouch," Remus half-cringed. "Telling someone you like them on Valentine’s Day..."

            I shot him a look of sheer daggers. "Yes, I know. I’ve been educated since then, many times over."

            "Sorry," he shrugged, and had to hurry to keep up with me as I purposely took the rest of the stairs two at a time.

            I shrugged back. "Anyway, it was stupid of me but I did it, and I can’t take it back now so that’s all there is to it. We’re not friends anymore, and maybe if such a little thing like a confession of my feelings could make us stop speaking to each other, we probably weren’t that good of friends in the first place."

            "He still cares about you," Remus said.

            "No, he doesn’t. Don’t lie to make me feel better. I know perfectly well how he feels. The clever Mr. Potter doesn’t give a damn about me, talented and special and as fucking _popular_ as he is. He doesn’t even spare me a passing glance." We reached the top of the stairs and I took a sharp turn, making myself rather angry now. Remus must have sensed my tense mood because he walked faster and spoke more softly.

            "Well, I think he still cares about you, even if he’s too stupid to realize it. I know you must be incredibly hurt, so you probably aren’t going to listen no matter what I say about it, and that’s okay. Thank you for explaining things to me, though. I understand why the two of you are going through what you’re going through now."

            "Remus, why do you care?"

            "Because you two are two of my best friends," he said simply and without hesitation.

            I stopped dead in my tracks and stared at him.

            "You _two_ are two of my _best_ friends? Maybe James is one of your best friends, darling, but I’m certainly not."

            He looked immediately and irreparably hurt. "How could you say that? I’ve always considered you to be an honorary Marauder. Since fourth year when we all became friends. I _thought_ you knew that."

            "If I was your best friend," I spat out, not thinking of what I was saying, "you would have told me your little secrets. Your best pal James knows and I know Sirius and Peter know too. So don’t bullshit with me, Remus, please."

            Remus visibly blanched, but the look of hurt never left his face. He looked like a kicked puppy dog. I half-expected him to burst out in a howl or whine.

            "How do you know I have secrets in the first place?" he asked quietly.

            "James let it slip one night when we were caught in the Quidditch locker rooms during a storm. He wouldn’t say what it was but he forgot who he was talking to apparently and started saying something about your secret."

            I felt nasty and vindictive. Teach them to keep secrets from me, alright...

            "Lily," Remus said slowly, with an extremely serious look on his face, "you’re right, you deserve to know. I’m sorry I haven’t told you, but this is a particularly nasty secret and I never know when people will hate me once I let them know. I didn’t want you to hate me."

            "So what’s the big deal?" I narrowed my eyes. "Tell me now, then, if I deserve to know so much."

            "I can’t out here in the middle of the hallway," he said patiently. "It’s a big secret. If you want to know, then let’s go to the common room. You can come up to our dorm. James and Sirius and Peter won’t be there for at least another hour; they’ve all either got detention or are going about earning detention as we speak. Would that be okay?"

            "I’m a Prefect," I said, my hand automatically flying to the badge on my robes. "It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to go into the boys’ dorm. Girls don’t belong there."

            Remus gave me a look of mild exasperation. "Just because James stung you a little bit a month ago doesn’t mean that you suddenly have to go all anally by the book now, you know. Since when do you care about visiting us in our dorm? I never knew you were specifically against it before."

            "I’ve never been _specifically up there_ before. Well, not really anyway."

            "Good point," he shrugged, but started walking anyway. When I didn’t follow he turned around and raised an eyebrow at me. I noticed his face was still very pale. "Aren’t you coming? I’m risking a lot telling you in the first place. It’s the least you could do."

            "Well..." I hesitated, momentarily a stickler for the rules.

            "Oh, Jesus," Remus said. "It’s not like I’m going to rape you or anything."

            I laughed because the mere thought of Remus trying to rape anyone was absurd.

            I followed him quickly to the common room, and the ten or so minutes it took us to get there thoughts raced through my head about what his secret could possibly be. Did he have cancer? HIV? Was he somehow being abused...?

            As soon as we entered the common room a clan of second and third years eyed us curiously. They knew me as the older Prefect girl who had had an issue with James Potter; they recognized Remus as the hot quiet Marauder that most of them lusted after. I was hesitant to follow anyone up to the boys’ dorm in front of them, but Remus tossed me a look that said ‘it’s not like they think too highly of you anyway right now’. And even though I didn’t quite want to think about that—was I turning into the Hogwarts trashcan slut?—I followed him anyway because I wanted to be a part of the group; I wanted to know his secret.

            As soon as we reached the top of the boys’ staircase the common room burst into laughter. I cringed, and was about to go down and shout at them a bit, but I remembered that I was curious here and that Remus was really going to tell me. So I followed him into the dorm, and we shut the door with a _swish bang_. I couldn’t hear the laughter anymore.

            He stood hugging himself in the middle of the room and the look on his face was like that of a man who knows he is about to be hanged. I pressed myself up against the door in case the secret was something terrible—was he secretly a psychotic mass murderer?—and braced myself for something bad. He wouldn’t have that look on his face unless it was horrible, so this definitely had to be horrible. "Okay," I said, "we’re alone. You can tell me now."

            "First I have to make you swear to me under pain of death that you’ll never tell another soul," Remus said rather intensely.

_             Oh God, he  _ is _psychotic!_

__ When I looked at him like he was insane and began to make a slow movement to reach for the doorknob, he opened his eyes wide and flushed a bright, frustrated red. "Promise it, Lily, I swear to God. Promise it."

            "I promise," I said quickly.

            "Under pain of death?"

            "Would you really kill me...?"

            "Yes, if you told anyone." Something about the look in his eye made me realize that he was very serious about this answer, but something in his voice also made me realize that it was necessary to let me know this. I relaxed and the tension dropped from my shoulders like the weight of the world had just been lifted off my back. I felt safer now that he’d assured me of what dire consequences would come about if I told anyone else. He must really have been serious.

            "Okay. Yes. I promise, under pain of death, that I’ll never tell another soul," I said.

            "Alright. You should sit down then, because I want to tell you the whole story. I’m not going to blurt it all out at once. It’s just not something I can do. This might take awhile."

            "I’ve got the time," I assured him, looking around for somewhere I could sit.

            Remus pulled out two chairs from the far corners of the room; they looked like they hadn’t been used much over the course of the Marauders’ five prominent years at Hogwarts. They were dusty and a little too firm to get quite comfortable in, but at the same time cushy like the common room armchairs—they made you think that maybe, if you sat in them more often, they could become softer and squishier and nicer to catnap in.

            As Remus dragged first mine over to where I was still standing, and then his, I quickly took in the fifth year boys’ dorm room.

            It looked different than that of the girls’. Ours was much more orderly, even if in a sometimes cluttered way. If our room was ever messy—which it usually wasn’t—it was littered with make up products and rogue hair brushes that had escaped their drawers, or music records that we’d spent the night listening to, or fashion magazines (both wizard and Muggle). Occasionally we’d have chocolate boxes or flowers floating around depending on when one of us had been to Hogsmeade last or otherwise been struck by the notion to pick flowers from the lovely castle grounds. Our room had lots of pretty, lacy _girl_ touches—elaborately done up beds, pretty painted walls with a ceiling that really glittered with constant stars, beautiful bay windows that were decorated with velvet and satin curtains. There were doilies on our dressers and perfume bottles constantly strewn across our vanities. Our lamps had ribbons. We were set.

            The boys took a much more masculine approach to attending to their dorm. While in our room, you couldn’t really decipher whose bed was whose except if you _really_ knew us well and had been up there a few times, but you could immediately decipher who had what bed in the boys’ particular dorm. First came Mundungus Fletcher’s bed, and it was littered with trash and wadded up pieces of parchment and random galleons lying about for everyone to see. There were suspicious smudges of something above the headboard that I didn’t even _want_ to know about.

            Next was clearly Peter’s bed. It was made quite well—something I wouldn’t have expected to see in such a place as this—but somehow it looked drab. He had laundry neatly stacked at the edge of it, but none of his pillows were propped up or anything. It looked flat and comfortable and rather pudgy; it was a lot like Peter himself, actually. There was half a glass of water on his nightstand, and it looked like somebody had taken a bite out of his lampshade. An alarm clock was toppled over helplessly on the floor.

            In the middle was Sirius. His bed looked longer than all the rest of them and it had its curtains loosely hanging around everything, like he hadn’t even bothered to tie them back in their proper places when he had woken up that morning. His bed was unmade and messy with more sheets than seemed natural for one teenage boy’s sleeping place. There were odds and ends and bobs and bits littering almost every inch of everything—inventions, I supposed—and a few Quidditch magazines lying open on the pillows. There was also a boot, halfway on the foot of the bed and halfway off.

            The next bed, the last one before Remus’s, was clearly where James slept. It was made perfectly and beautifully. I knew he’d learned how to do that from his mother, but it still surprised me somewhat that he’d practice such neatness at school. His prized brooms were on his bed near a pile of odds and ends that looked like they should’ve belonged to Sirius. A lot of books I’d already read—Mage books—were arranged in a fanned out position so that you could easily get a hint of what every one was about. His curtains had writing on them, like he’d gone at them with his quill... from what I could see it looked like a lot of equations and charms and random thoughts. A calendar hung above his headboard, a small X in every day’s box up until today’s date. A snitch darted about frantically in the calendar’s picture, but I ignored it. I was staring at the one last item that completed James Potter’s bed.

            A pair of white boxers, thrown carelessly at the edge. I couldn’t take my eyes off of them.

            All I could feel was a sickening, sinking feeling in my stomach.

            Handsome, smart, best friend boys are always the hardest ones to get over.

            Remus sat down in front of me, so I forced myself to pay attention, and I sat down too.

            "Are you familiar with the particular patch of Germany that contains the Lithe Forest?" he burst out in a low voice, rubbing his hands over his eyes and looking at me rather tiredly.

            "No," I said, perking up, "I can’t say that I am."

            "Well, I guess everything started out there. I have distant relatives who live there, cousins of my mother or something, and when I was little my parents used to travel a lot. They’re both researchers—they write books, mostly on new magical herbs and their properties and all that. They put together manuals for wizard travelers too. When I was six, they had to travel to a highly dangerous part of India for research and were reluctant to take me along. We don’t have any immediate family living, and the closest relatives that they could think to leave me with were my mother’s cousins, the ones who lived in the outskirts of the Lithe Forest in Germany."

            I nodded for him to go on, interested.

            "I was happy there and barely missed my parents. I was too young to really know that I _should_ miss them. They were gone so much that I was used to being left pretty much to myself... either with a nanny or a family friend for a couple of days. This trip didn’t seem any different, even though they’d be gone for a whole summer. 

"My mother’s cousins didn’t take very good care of me. They lived really near the forest—the start of it was just across a small field—and they warned me not to go running off to it, because it was dangerous, but they never really told me why or kept a particularly close eye on me. One day not long after I arrived I got curious and decided to see for myself what was so dangerous about this Lithe Forest of theirs, and I went across the field and deep into it while the adults were asleep that night.

            "I didn’t notice it was a full moon.

            "I was interested in all the plants and sounds that were in the forest. I was used to seeing things like that because of my parents and their research and I wasn’t afraid, even though my mother’s cousins had told me it was dangerous. It didn’t seem dangerous at all to me... at the time. It’s a bit like looking at the Forbidden Forest if no one’s ever _told_ you it’s deadly and thinking it might be a nice place for a picnic or something."

            I’d never really thought the Forbidden Forest would be a nice place for a picnic, but alright. When you looked at the Forbidden Forest you saw thick brambles and an almost suffocating amount of darkness. The huge trees barely let any light in. The Forbidden Forest looked... well, forbidden. I did however know what it felt like to still be curious about what was inside of it. After all, not long ago I’d followed Sirius into it to see his tree. Nothing bad had happened to me then, and yes, somehow it _did_ make the Forest seem less dangerous.

            "Yeah," I said, nodding for him to go on, but he didn’t seem to be seeing me anymore. He was looking right at me, but there was a dreamy sort of look in his eyes that I’d never seen before.

            Remus continued, "I kind of got lost. I was only little, six, and I wasn’t very wary or on my guard or anything like that. Suddenly I started hearing low growling noises and lots of hisses and scampering and scuffling... I’d never heard any of that before, and that definitely scared me. I was about to turn around and try to find my way out when suddenly, a huge wolf leaped on me and knocked me to the ground. Before I even had time to register what was happening, it lowered its savage jaw and bit deep into my shoulder. I often think about that wolf and wonder what ever happened to it, but I guess that’s something I’ll never know...

            "Anyway, I think you understand what I’m trying to tell you now. I was bitten by a werewolf, Lily."

            Remus’s eyes came back into focus. I stared at him.

            "If this is some kind of sick joke," I started.

            "It’s not," he said.

            "Oh, God. Remus," I said, a flood of sympathy crashing over me for the poor boy, "I am so sorry."

            "Yes," he said, "so am I."

Most people’s initial reaction to such a confession would be terror or disgust or something equally as prejudiced. Later Remus would admit that he had been terribly relieved when, after I’d looked at him with something he described as a ‘heartbreaking pang of understanding’, I’d bounded from my chair and into his to hug him, forever shattering any and all barriers that had been between us before. I squeezed onto him for dear life and tried to somehow transfer all of my compassion and sympathy into his poor body; a body I knew had suffered much more pain than I’d ever even have to dream about.

            A boy, 15 years old with a look of perpetual kindness engraved in his handsome face, he was someone that did not deserve the pain of lycanthropy. I was well aware of what torturous times people like Remus had to go through—we’d learned all about them in Defense Against the Dark Arts class in fourth year. Everything made sense now, and I knew he wasn’t lying.

            He always looked sick and pale around the time of the full moon. I vividly recalled that one night when I hadn’t been feeling well and Arabella had sent James and Remus up to my dorm to watch over me while I’d slept. I’d asked James what was wrong with Remus, but James had denied anything was going on. I had been quick enough to catch the look of concern that had passed over James’s face though, and now I knew why.

            I wanted so badly to take away Remus’s pain.

            _So this is what they’ve been hiding from me for so long_ , I thought, and _it’s no wonder why_.

            I didn’t let go of Remus, and he didn’t let go of me either. Before I knew it I was crying onto his shoulder, and though it might have been my imagination, I think he was crying too.

            "I don’t hate you," I told him passionately.

            "I’m sorry I thought you would," he said, and yes, he was definitely crying. His voice was choked and awkward.

            "I love you so much Remus," I felt compelled to add. "I love you so much for sharing this with me. I could never hate you. Never ever, do you understand? Never _ever_. Promise me no matter what happens we’ll be friends from here on out. Please promise me."

            "Always," he said, "always."

            There would be more time to talk about it later and to ask questions and to read up on lycanthropy and to realize the full seriousness of the situation. But for that one brief hour that we sat there, crying with each other—him because he finally had gotten to let it out, me because I’d finally gotten to learn—nothing mattered except the fact that we were two people, both hurting and miserable, clinging onto each other for dear life.

            Sometimes, what more can you ask for?


	20. Hope To Die

** Deconstruct, a Memoir **

By Solarism

_ Chapter Nineteen—Hope To Die _

{This chapter’s song is: A Summer Wasting by Belle and Sebastian.}

 

 

                Life, as it always does, went on. The intricacies of Hogwarts carried on through the month of May without much event. Melissa Potter, like her brother, seemed to largely disregard me. It was plain that she knew what had happened between James and I—rather what _hadn’t_ happened—and though Remus and Sirius both insisted that James had never told her to circumvent me, I couldn’t shake the sentiment that that was exactly what the little girl was doing. The few times I saw her away from her mob of raucous first year friends, she was latching herself to James’ waist, murmuring her signature "love Jay" and taking care not to outright stare at me. I would move by hastily, careful not to make eye contact with either of them, and sorely miss wrapping _my_ arms around him.

For James, everything seemed to be just routine as usual. A long time had passed now since my confession to him, but the strain between us had not eased. Our relationship had seemed to relax into something mutually unreceptive and angry. Neither of us spoke to the other unless we were forced to formally acknowledge each other because of Prefect duties, and even then, he glared daggers at me and I spoke sharply with him.

                "Evans," he’d glower, "Dumbledore says we’re to herd the first years to and from class again; they’re too rowdy in the hallways and are disrupting all the portraits."

                "And I suppose that’s my fault, is it?" I’d snap.

                "You were supposed to talk with them about behaving."

                "You were supposed to be watching them."

                "Whatever," he’d say.

                "Whatever," I’d agree, and turn on my heel to quickly walk away. The clack of my shoes would echo in my head for a long time; James never moved until I was far out of sight. He stood staring at the back of my head. I was always the first to run away.

                An outsider might shake their head and wonder why we had to be so juvenile. A few months before we had been good friends (probably not as good as I’d imagined, but still, good enough), and now we were reduced to something comparable to enemies. When you have a fight or a dispute with someone close to you, usually it’s resolved within a couple of weeks. People don’t just stay mad at each other forever, do they? The problem is that James and I were both formidable grudge-holders. Well, maybe it wasn’t that we were grudge-holders so much as that we were both profoundly hurt.

                When you’re mortified over something and have had the story of it dragged and trampled through the mud for several months you reach a point where it’s just no longer feasible to apologize. You linger in vain, still perplexed as to what you actually did wrong in the first place—my only transgression was caring for him—and hope that someday the other person will walk up to you and say they’re sorry and that they’ve missed you, only it never seems to happen because the other person is, in fact, waiting for you to do just the same thing. I had rehashed the events that led up to this hostility millions of times inside my head and never once could I find any logic. Things had turned dramatically severe in much too short a time. How was I to know that he would blow up like that? How was I to know that he never felt anything past friendship for me?

                And all the time a thought echoed throughout my head: _it’s over_.

                I had a thousand opportunities to make things better. If I could have just got over my extreme humiliation and told him that I wanted to be friends again, I’m sure he would’ve acquiesced and would’ve amiably accepted me back into his inner circle. Sometimes I felt like I’d do _anything_ just to end the coldness between us. It was so icy that it could freeze hell over, and hell was just about what I was living in. But like I said, I’d let it go too long. Now it was time to wait for him to make the first move, but if I knew anything about James, which it must be admitted I did, he was hurt (in his own remarkable little way) just as much as I was.

                _I set my cupcake on the ground and laid my hand on his. He didn’t flinch, didn’t move a centimeter. He laced his fingers in mine and swallowed hard so that I could see his Adam’s apple move just a tiny bit. "James..." I began._

                _"Shh," he said, squeezing my hand tightly. "Don’t ruin it."_

                He had articulated even before my assertion how against a relationship with me he was. In his own courteously restrained way he had given me all the caveat I’d needed to know to stay clear of him, but regrettably I guess he had underestimated my tremendous, ungainly stupidity. I just hadn’t picked up on his signs swiftly enough and he was too refined to actually presuppose the worst (that I did indeed have affection for him) so we had wound up in a debacle. It was tremendously unfortunate.

' _"All those times you looked at me funny, was that what it was? It was because you have a_ crush _on me?" he stared at me in disbelief. I wanted to punch him or cry or something. Of course that was why, of course it was. How could he ask that?_

                _"Yes," I said in a very small voice._

                _"Why? Why do you have to like me? You’re ruining everything," he said with a peculiarly hurt tone in his voice._

                I wasn’t exactly certain why James was so distraught over my feelings for him, but I remembered everything he had said after I’d told him, and I knew that somehow I’d pointed a gun at his heart and pulled the trigger. How I’d come to do so much destruction I still didn’t know, but somehow James seemed to consider my declaration a betrayal of the deadliest kind. He was besotted with Arabella so it wasn’t as if he was really against liking his friends. I couldn’t fathom why it would hurt him so much for me to feel for him, but it just did. The thought of that was terrible.

                _"You’re not supposed to like me," he stared back with surprisingly equal anger in his beautiful, beautiful eyes._

                _"Fine! Then I won’t anymore!" I practically yelled, unable to believe his continued audacity._

                _"_ Fine _!" he yelled back, looking the fiercest I’d ever seen him, "We can just forget that you ever became stupid and got_ feelings _for me!"_

                He’d actually gotten livid with me when I’d told him. At the time I had mistaken his extreme pain for audacity and blatant rudeness, but it wasn’t really that at all. I guess somehow I’d just hit a nerve, and it looked like for that he would never forgive me.

                I remembered back to last Christmas, not even half a year ago really, when Sirius and I went to his house and spent our holiday with the Potter family. James had given me an emerald friendship ring that fit my pinky finger—it, like my Mage rings, I couldn’t stand to look at now. It lived in its box on the top of my bureau, untouched. I remembered back to that same Christmas, how I’d given him my early diaries. I wondered if he’d read them. He’d never said anything to me about him, but it wasn’t like him to ignore such a momentous gift. I wondered what he’d thought about me. He must’ve read about Lucius and the minutiae of my gambling nights—was that why he didn’t like me...? Was I too tainted for him?

                And I had sang a snatch of a catchy Christmas carol for him, and kneeled before him under the mistletoe. He’d brushed some hair out of my eyes and leaned down and kissed me so softly, so sweetly on the cheek...

' _He smiled, tilted his head like Sirius, and held out his hands. I took them and kneeled down in front of him. Holding my cheek in one hand, he brushed a piece of stray hair and softly looked upwards. Following his gaze, I looked up and saw mistletoe._

                _"You always seem to get under it when you come over here," he said with a laugh in his voice._

                _"Yes, I do," I swallowed._

                _James leaned in slowly and kissed me on the cheek, and my body exploded with fireworks of every color._

                _"Merry Christmas, Lily," he said._

                _"Merry Christmas, James," I breathed._

                Everything always has to be so tricky in my life, doesn’t it?

                Girls like me shouldn’t be so stupid about boys like James, because girls me just can’t stand the hurt.

& & & & & & & & & & & &

                I resorted to learning to block out the dreadfulness of everything that surrounded James, which at Hogwarts was practically everything, from the most minuscule pebble on the ground (had he walked on that?) to the most ostentatious staircase there was (he’d laid his hand right there and _smiled_ at me).

                My teachers approved unanimously of my newfound devotion to studying but several of them pulled me aside when they noticed I’d abandoned my Mage rings—those reminded me of James too much to tolerate—and reprimanded me for taking my responsibilities so unconscientiously. I always explained (in a freezingly decorous manner I’d acquired from Lucius over the years) that I was not shirking my responsibilities; I knew faultlessly well what a target I was, but, thank you very much, I could look out for myself.

                Fifteen year olds think they know everything sometimes.

                When most people are in year-long relationships and suddenly get cruelly dumped on their asses, they go through a period of time in which they gorge themselves on chocolate and cry a lot and hate all the men the world has to offer—even the genuinely sweet ones (like Remus) and the genuinely hot ones (like Sirius). I went through that sort of although I’d never actually gone out with James, and it showed.

                I didn’t eat chocolate but I did run around much more unkempt than usual. I let my hair fall over my eyes and didn’t do pretty hairstyles like usual; it was always down and long and a bit frazzled looking. My Prefect’s badge was askew and I wore minimal make up. When you stuck me next to the incredibly dolled up Arabella, I looked ridiculous. I chewed a lot of bubble gum and crazily rushed from one class to the next and back to the first class again because I wanted to borrow an extra book from my professor.

                Girls I raced past in the hallways rolled their eyes at the back of my head and murmured cutting little remarks about how weird I was. Only a couple months before they’d wanted to be cookie cutter copies of me and now they wanted nothing to do with me. No one once reached out and asked if, you know, I was okay. And that hurt somewhere in the back of my head; it hurt that the school didn’t care. I wasn’t a little debutante anymore because I strayed slightly from what they deemed cool. _What the hell_ , I’d think to myself, _the stuff they think is cool—like gambling nights—is what I_ invented.

                But I ignored them for the most part. I’ve never been a huge fan of everybody else’s opinion, and fifth year was no exception. The only people who really got to me were Remus and Sirius, who glanced worriedly at each other whenever I passed, as if I’d started sprouting another head or something. I know they meant well, but I would’ve preferred them not caring at all to those looks. Those looks made my stomach sink. Was I a disappointment even to them?

                It was silly to think like that though. They cared about me. In some ways, the end of my friendship with James had brought me two wonderful new friendships to start cultivating, and I appreciated them. I’m not trying to say that I didn’t. Post-James, I saw Remus and Sirius in lights I never had before, and that in itself was invaluable. I cherished them. I really did. But, oh, those looks...

                Something inside me slipped a little bit more with every brow they knit, every look of sympathy they cast my way, every word I cut them off before they could utter...

                And all the while, James stayed away.

& & & & & & & & & & & & &

                "Lily?" called out a familiar voice from somewhere behind me in the hallway. I turned around with a smile on my face, expecting to see Arabella coming to walk with me to our next class. Instead, there stood a tall, blue-eyed blonde girl dressed in Hogwarts black and Slytherin green. Narcissa stood a good ten feet behind me, biting her lips and looking hopeful.

                I came closer. "Narcissa," I blinked.

                "Hi," she said, quickly pushing her hair back and giving me a classically heart-warming smile, "how are you?"

                "Ah, you know. I’ve been busy," I shrugged, pushing my hair back too. It was almost like a sign of social politeness—pushing your hair back, a ridiculous form of etiquette that informed the person you were speaking to of your interest in what they had to say.

                "I know. Arabella told us all that you were taking off from, you know, Saturday nights for awhile..." Narcissa trailed off uncertainly as I grimaced. Saturday gambling nights—I’d really been neglecting them. It was silly to push off all the work on Aria and still expect to make money from things. Arabella was good at what she did, but she wasn’t me. I was the _people_ person. I was our social element. I realized for the first time that both Narcissa and Lucius needed me, at least from a business perspective. Had our income dropped since I’d decided to take a hiatus?

                "Yes," I replied, hesitating for a moment. What do you say to a person you’ve almost entirely forgotten about? Impulsively, I suddenly knew what to add. "But I’ll be coming back. Soon. Next Saturday, I think."

                "That would be nice," Narcissa nodded, looking not just a little bit relieved. "We’ve missed you," she said. "Lucius and I, and Mundungus and the whole gang. We’ve really missed having you around. You’re always so fun, Lily. You’re always the life of the party."

                The life of the party? I didn’t feel much like the life of the party. I felt like an ugly little bookworm in serious need of a deep hair conditioning. But it would be nice to wipe the smirk off of everyone’s face. Weird, was I? Yeah, I’d show them weird.

                "Yeah, well. I’ll be coming back, definitely next Saturday, I think. You can tell Lucius that from me if you want. That I’ll be coming back. And that..."

                "And that?" she asked with an innocent raise of her eyebrows.

                "And that I’ll see him there," I finished, a little apprehensively.

                "Alright," Narcissa flashed me her best toothy grin. "I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear that." She looked around quickly, and spying no one in the hall other than a few Ravenclaw third years and a bunch of senseless Hufflepuffs, leaned in toward me with a conspiratorial twinkle in her eyes. "Between you and me," she said, "I think he’s gotten so _handsome_ these past few months. I mean, he’s always been handsome. But have you seen him lately? We always used to like his muscles. Remember? Well, they’re nicer now. He’s getting so _hot_."

                I couldn’t help but laugh. Of course Lucius was hot. He was a Malfoy.

                "I think you’re right, Narcissa," I said.

                "And what’s even hotter," she continued, "is that—oh, don’t tell anyone about this, okay?"

                "Okay," I agreed.

                "What’s even hotter is that his dad is getting in major trouble with the Ministry," she said quickly, lowering her voice. "It’s being all hushed up and nothing has been released to the press yet, but if things go the way Lucius and I are hoping they’ll go, that horrible man will be shut up in Azkaban for the rest of his days."

                "What?" I was surprised. "What’s Mr. Malfoy in trouble for?"

                "Everything in the book," Narcissa grinned devilishly. "You name it, he’s done it. Embezzlement, having and using illegal Dark Arts materials, possibly being in league with You-Know-Who..."

                "You-Know-Who?" It was my turn to raise my eyebrows.

                "Lord Voldemort, silly," Narcissa rolled her eyes. "It’s the in thing now, because he’s so dangerous, you know? You call him You-Know-Who."

                "Oh," I said.

                "Well, anyway," she pressed on, "if Mr. Malfoy is convicted, and there’s a good chance he might be, that makes Lucius the lord of Malfoy Manor. Lucius would inherit everything. Wouldn’t that be _fabulous_? He’d be one of the richest people ever to attend Hogwarts. And his silly mother wouldn’t be able to prevent him from doing anything—she’s always sick—so we could have the _best_ parties over there during the summertime. Wouldn’t you love that, Lily? Doesn’t that sound _marvelous_?"

                "Hm," I said, not quite sharing her enthusiasm. "If Mr. Malfoy really did all those things, then of course it’d be right to put him in Azkaban. Is he really in league with Voldemort?"

                "You-Know-Who," Narcissa corrected me.

                "You-Know-Who," I repeated, somewhat dully.

                "Oh yes," she nodded. "Lucius told me."

                "Is Lucius?" I asked suddenly, my eyes going a little wide with trepidation.

                "Is Lucius what?" she frowned, confused.

                "Is Lucius in league with him too?"

                "Oh, no," she said, with a toss of her long blonde hair. "Of course not. That would be stupid, wouldn’t it? I mean. Lucius isn’t the type to bow down to anyone, you know."  
            "I know," I said. "But I had to ask."

                "Yeah," she shrugged. "You should talk to him, Lily. He’s going to be _rich_."

                "He’s always been rich," I pointed out.

                "But richer," she insisted. "A hundred million times richer. Whoever marries him is going to be the happiest woman alive!"

                I looked at her and suddenly I could see her dressed in expensive dress robes, looking pale and regal, holding a scepter and sitting beside Lucius. My image of her was not a pleasant one—her pretty face was contorted into the most horrible looking scream I could ever imagine.

                But in a flash, the vision had passed.

                "I’ve been meaning to talk to him anyway," I said, even though that was kind of a lie.

                "Good," Narcissa said, reaching out to squeeze my hand in a sisterly way that I hadn’t used with her in a very long time. She checked her watch and clamped a hand to her glossy lips. "Oh, no! Look at the time. We’re almost late for class! I’ve got to run, Lily, honey, but I’ll see you Saturday."

                She gave me a one-armed, heavily perfumed hug.

                "Yeah," I said to the back of her head, as she was already walking quickly away, "I’ll see you Saturday..."

& & & & & & & & & & & & &

The next afternoon, while James and Sirius were taking an emergency trip to Hogsmeade to collect some new gags from Zonko’s joke shop, Remus approached me as I sat studying in the common room. He collapsed in the chair opposite mine and picked up one of the books I’d just finished reading— _Advanced Theory: The Dark Arts Magelet_ —and opened to the first page of it. After scanning it in silence, he shut it and gave me one of those _looks_.

                "Why are you studying this stuff, Lily? Isn’t it enough that you’re already one of the only people to _ever_ even earn a basic Magelet while still at Hogwarts?" he asked imploringly.

                I looked up from my notes with a smile. "No," I replied with a shake of my head, "it’s not."

                Remus shook his head too, but he smiled back and scooted closer. "What are you trying to do? Kill yourself? This is a lot of studying, even for you. James doesn’t even study this much."

                _James_. I wished Remus wouldn’t mention him.

                "And where are your rings?" he frowned, giving my hands a quizzical glance.

                "I don’t wear them anymore," I said simply. "I’m shocked you haven’t noticed before now. All the professors have."

                "Is it because of James? Well, I suppose it must be. I know I shouldn’t lecture you about how dangerous it is not to wear them—"

                "We’re at Hogwarts, Remus. It’s not that dangerous."

                "—because all the professors already undoubtedly have—"

                "They’ve been shoving it down my throat."

                "—so in that case I suppose I’ll just settle with asking you what the point is of studying for another Magelet if you don’t even utilize the powers from the ones you already have."

                I thought about it for a minute, and in reply took my hands off my notes and put them lightly to my eyes. I was getting a headache.

                Remus looked at me thoughtfully, and softly said, "That’s what I thought."

                Since Remus had told me the story of his lycanthropy, he’d been closer to me than he ever had been in the past, much like Sirius was now closer to me than he had been before he’d led me out in the Forbidden Forest to see his ridiculous tree. I’d never been this good of friends with either boy when I was close with James. Perhaps it had been James’s blindingly dizzy eyes that had distracted me from seeing the wonderfulness of his friends, but now that I wasn’t so tightly ensnared in his web of perfection, it was easy to tell who, out of the three of them, the more supportive people to be around were.

                Dare I suggest that perhaps the famous James Potter had been a bit self-absorbed?

                "So," Remus said. I was called out of my daydream, and I looked at him a bit perplexedly. He grinned a wide, nice boy grin that made his eyes light up in a fantastically romantic way, and a little hint of mischief played across his face. "Want to do something probably against the rules, slightly risqué, and altogether alarmingly fun?"

                I stared. He wanted to fuck me.

                "Swimming in the lake, of course," he elaborated quickly, and I let out the breath I’d just sucked in.

                "Swimming in the lake? You mean like with the Giant Squid?" I asked.

                "Of course with the Giant Squid," Remus said, nodding his head vigorously. "What other lake does Hogwarts have?"

                I was beginning to see a trend here. The Marauders were so nobly random that it was confusing. All of them, from Sirius the instigator, to James the mastermind, to Remus the composer... they all shared something similar that seemed to come out at the most random times. But talking to Remus, in some ways, was just like talking to James.

                I don’t know what came over me, but suddenly swimming in the lake sounded fun.

                "Okay," I said. "I’ll go."

                "Great," Remus stood up and beckoned me toward the door. "Let’s get going; it’s almost sundown and it’s a perfect time to swim. Everything’s all golden and no one’s outside because people that are stupid. If you don’t mind missing dinner we can probably get a good hour or two out there. It’s _fantastic._ "

                I stood up too, and it felt like being with James again, those times he’d demanded my presence in all manners of escapades—trips to Hogsmeade, adventures to the kitchens, to accompany him to Quidditch practice or a Prefect meeting...

                We walked casually out of the common room, like we were just going to respectably take another trip to the library in order to get some extra studying in before bedtime. Before I knew it we were being kids, laughing; Remus started running, his sneakers squeaking unceremoniously as they slapped against the grandly polished marble floor. I flailed along behind him, trying to catch up, a stitch in my side long before we wound our way out of the confusingly large castle and into the beautiful grounds. Everything was emerald. The grass was so deep and plush and perfect looking that it reminded me of paradise.

                We chased each other down the rolling slopes and toward the fabulously pristine lake. Remus immediately disturbed the calm waters by splashing his way in up to his knees, ripping off his red and gold tie and throwing off his shoes and socks as he went. I stopped to catch my breath at the water’s edge, and watched with fatigued interest as he stripped down before my very eyes. He shrugged off his white, perfectly pressed school shirt and spread his arms out to embrace the world in front of him.

                I stared at his bare chest, and cleared my throat.

                "Yes?" he looked over my way as if he’d forgotten I was even with him.

                "We didn’t bring any bathing suits," I said with a little bit of humility.

                "You’ve got a bra on, haven’t you?" he asked with a careless shrug, and began to unbutton his pants.

                I felt silly just standing there—and really, isn’t a bra and a pair of panties just as good as a bikini when it comes down to it?

                "Oh, what the hell," I said, and lifted my blouse up over my head. My Prefect’s badge came crashing down to the grassy bank along with the blouse, but I didn’t notice. It was so weird to be topless in public that it made me giggle.

                Remus turned around to look.

                "I’ve never seen you without your shirt before," was all he said, but his eyes remained on my face and not on my breasts. I shrugged, adjusted my bra straps, and kicked off my shoes.

                He took off his socks, which were dripping wet and muddy, and unbuttoned his pants. No one, not even Lucius, had ever stripped in front of me before, and nor had I ever stripped in front of anyone else. Well, save Arabella, but she didn’t count. And there had been that one time with James in the Quidditch locker room... but I was trying hard to block that out of memory, so it didn’t count either. Somehow, this strip down hit me harder. Somehow, it was more realistic.

                Remus looked good in only boxers. Hell, he looked great.

                He wasn’t an overly muscled boy. He looked good for a fifteen year old, and had the body of a man—I could tell that if you touched him, he’d feel rather like Lucius. At the same time, he was lean and less magnificent than James. This was certainly no drenched white boxers episode—Remus wore black boxers with dancing broomsticks on them—but it was definitely something to remember.

                Never let it be said that Remus Lupin was not a hottie in his own right.

                "Will you help me undo my skirt?" I asked.

                He splashed out of the water, and I pointed to my lower back where a button and a zipper were. He came close and fumbled with it. He wasn’t adept at taking girls’ clothes off. _Remus Lupin the virgin_ , I thought with my eyes closed and a slightly lustful smile on my lips.

                It wasn’t that Sirius and James weren’t virgins. I imagined that they probably were. I was one too. But somehow it was so much more delectable to realize that Remus was a virgin as well. He was sweetly clumsy as he helped me out of my skirt, business only the whole time.

                "Thank you," I said, and now being with him felt like being with Lucius. The best part of having Lucius Malfoy like you was the kisses. I wondered what Remus’s kisses would taste like.

                Suddenly, this had gone from a friendly study diversion to something filthy and lusty. And it was _nice_.

                But he smiled at me with a playfulness that was so naïve, so like a puppy, that a warning chill swept through my body. I remembered something Arabella had said many months ago. We had walked down the hall, and Remus had smiled at me, and Arabella had jerked me sharply away before I could begin a conversation.

                _"We don’t stray from the ones we already hold," she said._

                At the time I thought she’d been warning me not to flirt with boys other than Lucius, because Lucius was who everyone thought I was meant to be with. But what if she’d meant something else? What if she’d meant that it was okay to fuck around with guys like Lucius Malfoy—he could take it—but not boys like Remus Lupin and Sirius Black, because they couldn’t?

                Because we were too rotten inside for them.

                Was that why Arabella wasn’t with Sirius? Was she afraid of her heart being too black to love him enough?

                Remus beckoned me into the water. "Come on, don’t just stand there," he said, dropping my skirt on the bank and splashing his way in again. "The water is _perfect_."

                I dipped my toe in, and I discovered that he was right. The water was warm. "I don’t remember it ever being so nice before," I called out to him. He was already swimming deeper out.

                "That’s because it’s usually not," he said.

                "What do you mean?" I half-asked, half-wondered out loud. "How is that possible? It’s a lake."

                Remus just shook his head and dipped his head back into the water, gracefully moving to float on his back. "Are you coming or not?" he goaded.

                "I’m coming," I assured him, and letting all of my dignity slip away from me, left my clothing behind on the banks and swam out to greet him. The ends of the beautiful red hair I prided myself on were dark with water; they looked similar to Remus’s golden brown color, only they picked up the sun better. I showed him the color change with a grin, and he laughed.

                I dunked my hair back into the Hogwarts lake, following Remus’s example, and thought of Shakespeare’s Ophelia drowning in a lake full of lilies. My namesake.

                All around us the water was a swirling mass of gold and diamonds. The setting sun made fantastic, rich hues play across the top of the lake and little glints brightly reflected the heavens above us in a blindingly happy orchestra of light. It was like swimming in a leprechaun’s dreamland; all around you could see curious fish coming to swim by our toes—the sun seemed to even reflect off of their glittering scales—and exotic plant life I had never seen before in all manners of burgundy and aqua. Sweet yellows and precious purples hit the clouds above us, and in a truly classic sunset extravaganza, a parade of red and rose danced its way across the horizon, making the whole sky truly blush with delight.

                It was an almost perfect moment.

                I looked at Remus in happy silence, feeling the happiest I had since I’d been friends with James, and he looked at me back with a reverence and pride that made me start to believe he was the Creator of all this himself. If God existed, and if God was someone with such appreciation for beauty like Remus, then maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to believe. It was as if, within Remus’s eyes, he was saying " _Look Lily, look at what I’ve made for you... here are my colors. My compassion is my paintbrush, the world is my canvas, and I’ve done it all for you. Isn’t it—isn’t life—beautiful?_ "

                "Oh," I said, not able to believe I’d missed out on such an extraordinary friendship up until now.

                "I want you to know," Remus said, choosing his words carefully, "that there are things in life that are more important than the ass holes you meet here at Hogwarts. There’s the sun and the stars and the warmth and the glow of happiness that plays upon your cheeks when you know you’re doing something right. There’s peace and love and passion and beauty in our existence. I don’t want you to forget that."

                "Why would I forget that?" I asked softly.

                "Sirius and I are worried," he said with the sad truth dazzling in his eyes, "that you’re about to go through a rough time. We’re trying to help you. We’re trying to save you from any more pain. But we’re not sure that it’s going to be possible to save you from yourself if you don’t come to realize that James isn’t the only boy you’re ever going to meet. We’re not sure you realize how many other people there are out there, that you know, could maybe be perfect for you too, if you’d let them."

                "I didn’t think this was about James," I said. "I thought... I thought you were just taking me out here to get me to stop studying."

                "Why were you studying in the first place?" he asked.

                "To learn," I replied automatically.

                "Or to suffocate?"

                He let it sink in a minute. I couldn’t think of a single thing to say, so I didn’t say anything at all. We tread water in silence until the first stars appeared, blazing coldly.

                "It’s a never ending story," said Remus with a smile playing at his lips. "Look at all this beauty, Lily. Doesn’t it make you feel big to know that you’re allowed to see it?"

                "How can you appreciate everything so much?" I asked.

                "You mean because I’m a werewolf?" he raised his eyebrows blandly.

                "I didn’t—" I began.

                "Having something like that on my shoulders is terrible. I’m not going to deny that. It’s horrible. Sometimes I want to die. Thank your lucky stars you’ll never have to experience the pain of a transformation like that. I’m telling you now, it’s hell on earth."

                He twirled around in a circle, letting his fingers skip their way through the top of the water. He looked down into the waters below, where our legs moved to keep us afloat. His were delicate for a boy’s. They looked like mine, only more graceful. They were legs that supported a sturdy body and an even sturdier head. His mind was something incredible. I waited for him to continue what he was saying with awareness.

                "But seeing the ugly side of things only enhances the good. I think you know what I mean," he said, with an all-knowing glance my way. I felt a little ashamed. Why was I moping around so much about James? Remus didn’t sulk about being a werewolf, so why was I bothered by something so insignificant as a stupid ass hole I’d met at Hogwarts? There are more important things in life.

                "It’s like that stupid saying," he went on. "It’s clichéd but it’s true: when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. And let me tell you. After so many years of letting the lemons pile up, now I can sure as hell make one killer glass of lemonade."

                We smiled.

                "Will you make me a glass sometime?" I asked hopefully.

                "Make it yourself," he laughed, splashing me.

                I splashed him back, and before you knew it, we had a splashing war. I seized his hand, giggling and choking back water, and we both went rigidly still.

                "Hi," I said, very close to him, holding one of his wrists above the water.

                "Hello," said Remus.

                "Do you believe in perfect?" I asked.

                He hesitated for a few seconds, broke into a shy grin, and then said without a doubt, "Yes. Yes, I do."

                I take it back. It wasn’t an _almost_ perfect moment.

                It was just right.


	21. Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll

** Deconstruct, a Memoir **

By Solarism

_ Chapter Twenty—Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll _

{This chapter’s song is: Let That Be Enough by Switchfoot.}

                James Potter confused me. He ignored me like he was under the impression I didn’t exist, and when he was (however rarely) forced to acknowledge that I was indeed living, he persisted in giving me chilling looks and kept speaking to me in a freezingly polite manner. It was amazing. This behavior contradicted everything I’d ever known about him. In the two years we’d been friends, I had never so much as had a glimmer of an idea that he could be capable of this. He reminded me of Lucius in some ways—distant, angry, and maybe a little sad, but very much stubborn in the conception that he was right; right about everything and anything, right just as powerfully as I was wrong.

                It made me angry. Where was the boy who I used to study with? The boy who once waltzed me from class to class? Somehow, that boy had been kidnapped from my life, and had been replaced by someone I couldn’t even recognize. I struggled with my memories of his smiles, his touch, and those dizzy, dizzy eyes. I wanted the James I’d always idolized back. I missed him. I missed everything about him. Most of all, though, I missed the warmth in his voice. A few months ago there had been an endless amount of compassion in it for me, and now his voice only rendered me desolate.

                I had never been lonelier in my life.

                Before I’d met James, loneliness hadn’t mattered. Aside from the companionship of Arabella, I had been used to the coldness of being alone. Lucius hadn’t seemed so dispensable. Before James, I had almost loved Lucius—a child loving another child out of convenience and the yearning for another’s touch. My mother hadn’t mattered, either. She had a presence in my life only as a vague and somewhat frightening specter of summer. Now, at the end of my fifth year, it seemed very important indeed that I would soon have to go back to her for the summer. It now seemed like a death sentence instead of just a painful thorn in my side.

                Before James, these things had seemed permanent and just a regular part of life. It wasn’t fair; after meeting James and experiencing everything that he stood for, people like my mother seemed very much out of the ordinary and seemed to be very big problems. James’s parents would never dream of drinking like my mother did, and James’s sister would never ignore him like Petunia ignored me. James was so loved and was so loving that it made it painfully obvious to me how dysfunctional _my_ family really was. James had a father; I had a non-father. James was looking to the stars; I was still down in the gutter. It wasn’t fair.

                I had been perfectly fine before meeting him. I had carried on with as much grace and power as I could and everything had been bearable. The problem was that now that I’d had a piece of heaven, it was immeasurably hard to come back down to earth. It was _hard_ to go back to the way things were before. In some ways, though, I guess I was actually better off than I had been before fourth year. I now had several more years of experience and knowledge under my belt, the friendship of Sirius and Remus, a strengthened relationship with Arabella, and held a more respected position in Lucius’s world.

                But none of this was James. None of this was the person I had depended on for everything for so long.

                How could this really and truly have happened?

                We were supposed to see the world together. We were supposed to be Aurors. We were supposed to have romantic candlelit Christmas dinners together for years and years to come... Why had I been so stupid? Why had I wrecked such a good thing?

                I cursed myself time and time again and cursed myself doubly for not making the effort to go and talk to him and make amends.

                At the beginning of June, I finally got my chance to repair some of the damage I’d caused, and I leapt at it. When James strolled in the common room after Quidditch practice—being the Gryffindor team captain took a lot out of him and he looked exhausted enough to be semi-approachable—I shoved my books out of the way, got up, ran to the boys’ staircase, and stopped in front of it. He didn’t see me at first but when he got closer he realized in a sort of befuddled way that I was blocking his path.

                He averted his eyes and started to turn away, like he’d rather tire himself out more by staying down here in the common room than open up his mouth and actually ask me to move.

                " _James_ ," I breathed, desperately.

                He turned around and gave me a soulful, calculating look that made me feel alien and strange inside my own body. With my mouth slightly open and my eyes wide and imploring, I stared at him and silently willed him to say something, anything. Gently, he pushed some of his messy black hair out of his eyes and glanced toward the roaring fire. Slightly muddy and definitely dead tired, he took heavy steps over to an arm chair and settled himself into it. Silently, looking sad and much older than his simple fifteen years, he waited for me to follow him like I always had before.

                The common room seemed to hush itself as all the younger students stopped mid-sentence to watch as I made my humiliating trek over to the fireplace. I sat down opposite James, leaned toward him and clasped my hands tightly in my lap. I didn’t know how to begin and I knew everyone was staring at me. My cheeks burned crimson.

                Luckily, James cleared his throat. He didn’t have to say anything more; people could easily get the hint from the way he subtly expressed himself as to what he wanted. The common room resumed activity. Apparently he’d punished me enough.

                "Did you need something?" he asked sharply, taking me by surprise. _Okay, punishment’s not over yet._ I sat up straight and tilted my head.

                "I just wanted to talk to you," I said.

                "Oh?" James cocked his head to the side too, but it wasn’t in his usual easy way. It was mocking and angry.

                "I..." I didn’t know what to say. I knew what I _wanted_ to say, but none of it would make its way out of my mouth. I looked at him, studied every little detail of his handsome face, and ached inside.

                I studied him so that I’d never forget him. His hairline was perfect except for one little jagged part off to the left side. It was hardly noticeable. His forehead was vaguely shiny and his cheeks were pink, sure signs he’d just worked as hard as he possibly could out at practice. There was one game left in the school year and Gryffindor was in the running for the House Cup against Ravenclaw. James would be beating his brains out trying to get the best of the other team...

                I became aware that he was waiting for me to continue.

                "I miss you," I choked out with all the sincerity I possessed. It was the first thing that came to mind and it was the single truest thing I’d uttered to date. I missed him like I missed feeling happy. Hell, James _was_ happiness.

                He didn’t say a word, and after an awkward minute of dead silence, it became apparent to me that he wasn’t going to any time soon either. I fumbled for words to continue with, but with his cold stare it was daunting to even remember my own name. I uttered a small mumble of helplessness, frustrated and sad. I guess he took pity on me because he shrugged.

                "Why do you miss someone you forgot you were friends with in the first place?" he asked.

                "What do you mean?"

                "Don’t you remember?" James grinned sardonically. "I do. I think about it every day."

                And then I did remember. I’d told him, when we’d gotten mad at each other after my confession, that maybe we should forget that we had ever been friends in the first place. How I regretted that now.

                "I didn’t mean it," I said.

                "Sure you did. You’ve been carrying through with it _quite_ well for _quite_ some time now. You’re a _smashingly_ good non-friend, Lily. Do you practice often? Maybe in the mirror to yourself? Do you practice those eye rolls and those averted glances to yourself when you’re alone at night?"

                "I—" I spluttered, at a total loss for words after this sudden attack.

                "Oh, that’s right, I forgot. You’re not alone at night at all! You’ve got Lucius Malfoy. Silly me, my mistake," he said scathingly.

                I stared.

                "Don’t look so innocent, Lily," James said. "You said you liked me. Maybe you did. That’s your story, right? I just didn’t realize that I happened to be the flavor of the week. I wouldn’t have been so upset if I’d have known you move on to a new victim every couple days."

                "Excuse me," I spat out, "but please set something straight for me. What exactly are you trying to do here... accuse me of being a whore or just express your disappointment I’m no longer hanging on every word you say?"

                "Well if the word ‘whore’ suits you..." he shrugged. I opened my mouth in anger. He gave me a spiteful look and continued, "But it isn’t just Lucius, is it? You’ve already gone after Sirius and Remus too. Who’s next, Lily _darling_ , Severus Snape? You’ve always had a soft spot for the Slytherins. I mean, once you’ve fucked all of Gryffindor, it’s just the next logical step—"

                "How dare you!" I said, raising my voice. People turned to look toward us again, but now I wasn’t ashamed. I was infuriated.

                "Oh? Does it hurt to hear the truth?" he said, cocking his head mockingly to the side again.

                "It’s not the truth," I said, my voice high and thin. _A rush of blood to the head... a rush of blood to the head... a rush of blood to the head..._

'"It is!" James said vehemently. "It is, Evans. Everyone can see it. Everyone can see how you work. Everyone knows—and I mean _everyone_ knows—that deep down inside, you’re nothing but a frightened little girl bored out of her fucking mind. That’s all you are. You wrecked any friendship you had with me, and then you went on to prove to me that you truly didn’t care about me in the first place. You _hit on my best friends_. You sent Arabella to slap me. _You didn’t talk to me for months_!"

                "I wanted to!" I snapped, beginning to break down. "I wanted to, James! I tried, I tried! I wanted to talk to you so many times—"

                "Then why didn’t you?" he asked fiercely, breathing hard, with his hands clutching the arms of his chair so tightly that his knuckles had turned white. His dizzy eyes demanded an explanation, but how could I explain to him? After everything he’d just said, after everything he’d just indirectly called me, how could I explain?

                "That’s what I thought," he said softly, and relaxed his grip on the armchair.

                "I’m sorry," I said.

                "You know why I got so upset when you told me you liked me?" James said in an even lower voice. He leaned toward me with an unreadable glint in his eye and studied my face for a minute.

                I shook my head slowly, suddenly very afraid.

                "Because I was afraid of falling in love with you," he said, his dizzy eyes boring straight into me. "I was afraid that I would fall in love with you and that I would lose the best friend I ever had."

                "But," I said with a little choked gasp, "you lost me anyway..."

                "I would rather lose you this way than that way. This way hurt. Make no mistake. I tried to warn you. I tried to warn you a thousand times not to say it, but you wouldn’t listen. Would you? You never listen, Lily... you never do."

                I felt like my whole body was melting. I wanted to sink down into the floor and die.

                "But what hurt the most?" he continued, sitting back slightly in his chair, "When I found out that the first thing you did was run around with Sirius... the first boy who you could get within arm’s reach of, and you forgot all about me. That’s what hurt the most. And it hurt to see you talking to Lucius. He kissed you all over. I saw that. And it hurt when you swam with Remus in the lake. Yes, he told me about that. It hurt and it never stops hurting. It hurts like you don’t even know."

                "You said you didn’t like me," I said pleadingly, "you said you liked Arabella..."

                "Do you really think," he said with a sad smile this time, "that Arabella compares in the slightest to someone like you?"

                "Someone like me?" I asked, perking up, once again hanging on every word he said.

                "I like her. I like her, she’s great. But you were always more than great to me, Lily. Didn’t you know that? Didn’t you know that I didn’t like you because you’re my best friend? You were, I mean..." he shook his head.

                Suddenly I wanted to kiss him. God, I loved this boy. _Yes, James_ , I thought, _go on... go on_!

                "I’ve never met someone more interesting than you. It was a little scary. We agreed on everything. I let you see _everything_ about me."

                I nodded. "I let you see everything about me too—"

                He looked at me sharply. "No, you didn’t," he said.

                "James," I said in a rush, "of course I did, I wanted to show you everything—"

                "Lily," he said.

                I looked at him, the happiest girl alive, and he looked back, the saddest boy in existence.

                "James?" I asked.

                "Things changed," he said.

                "What?"

                "We _used_ to be best friends. We used to agree on everything. I don’t even _know_ you now."

                "What? Yes you do, of course you do—"

                "No," he cut me off. "I don’t."

                "How can you say that?" I asked.

                "You didn’t talk to me, like I said, for months—"

                "So let me fix it now—"

                "I’m sorry, I can’t do this again."

                "You what?"

                "I can’t do this again, I said."

                "I heard what you said.... I don’t understand."

                He got up, and the whole common room seemed to hold its breath and share in my distress as he did. It’s funny how people like to butt into other people’s business. Only at Hogwarts are such humiliations broadcast for public entertainment.

                "I think it’s best if we continue on not talking. You’re good at being a non-friend. I said that before and I meant it. So let’s just forget about this, okay?"

                "You can’t just say that," I said, feeling like I’d just had the whole world drop upon me. I was crushed.

                "I just did." James stopped looking at me and gazed longingly at the boys’ staircase. "Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve just had a very tiring Quidditch practice and I’d like to get some sleep before I have to wake up tomorrow and study for the O.W.L.’s. Goodnight, Lily."

                " _James_ ," I pleaded.

                But he didn’t want to hear me. Next thing I knew, just like that, he had fled. For once I hadn’t been the first to run away, and I felt more terrible than I ever had before.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & &

                Friday night, the night before I would make my big return to the underground world of my own gambling nights, I bumped into Lucius on my way out of Charms class. He was coming from the classroom across the hall and wasn’t looking where he was going. Malfoys don’t _need_ to look where they’re going—they automatically assume everyone else will move out of their way before impact anyway. However, I’ve never been one of those people who moved out of the way for him, and it had been so long since I’d been in the habit of being around him that I completely forgot about his arrogant walking habits anyhow. With a crash, my books and parchments and quills were strewn about on the floor of the hall.

                It was a classic boy-helps-girl moment. We both bent down, apologizing profusely (Lucius, apologizing?), and in another classic moment, our hands grabbed the same book. I looked up into his stormy gray eyes with my glittering emerald ones over my Transfiguration textbook, and smiled. Today his eyes weren’t angry. Today they looked like a misty morning on some hopelessly romantic beach—everything was a multitude of gray, silver, and stone, but in a rather fetching way instead of his usual formidable look.

                "Hi," I said, with a slight twisty feeling in my stomach. It was good to see a friendly face.

                "Hi," Lucius said with one of his rare but all too delightful grins.

James, walking with Sirius, stepped out of the classroom I’d just come out of and shot me a quick, unreadable glance. I looked back at him and slowly stood up, clutching my things to my chest and realizing how unkempt I must look. Lucius watched as I stared after James, momentarily forgetting that he was standing in front of me, and cleared his throat after he’d decided I’d had my fill of drinking in James’s essence.

                "Still in love with Potter, are you?" he asked, but not unkindly. There was a softness in his voice that was welcome, although on him it seemed most out of place.

                "I’m not in love," I said, turning back to him with a shake of my head. "But I had something of a... confrontation with him, I guess, a couple days ago."

                "What kind of confrontation?" Lucius asked interestedly, with a raise of his perfect blonde eyebrows.

                "Well, I tried to make up with him," I said hesitantly, unsure whether or not Lucius would hate this or not. "And he rejected me."

                "Want me to kill him?" Lucius asked, so eagerly that I stared at him a moment before outright bursting into a fit of laughter.

                "No, don’t kill him," I choked out through my amusement.

                "I’m serious," Lucius grinned again, his secret light shining through, "I could kill him for you."

                "I know," I said, recovering with a chuckle. "Thank you. But let’s not kill him yet, okay? He’s alright."

                Lucius looked me over. "Well. Alright, some other time, then." He gave James’s retreating back an amusingly forlorn look, and with a little sigh of a chance at happiness lost, looked back to me. "Say, you wouldn’t want to come to my party tonight, would you? Friday nights are drinking nights. I was just about to head over there right now to start setting up. I take it you just had your last class of the day too?"

                "Yes," I said, "I did. Charms. But I’ve never been to one of your parties before."

                "So you’ll come then?"

                "I don’t know. I’ve got a lot of studying to do. And I think I was supposed to meet Arabella later—"

                "Please?" he looked at me and I thought that I’d regret it if I didn’t go with him. So that’s what I did.

                "Okay," I gave in. "I dare say you need my help setting up anyway."

                "Sure," Lucius shrugged. "You’re the best there is when it comes to organization."

                "You better believe it," I smiled. Was I? It was nice to think that I was...

                So I followed him. It was nice to walk with him, possibly one of the most physically handsome boys in the entire school, and let all those girls who’d whispered about my _weirdness_ stare in envy. It was never a bad thing to be seen with Lucius Malfoy. And maybe it was because it felt good to slap the look of shock back on people’s faces, but when Lucius’s hand found its way into my own, I took it and held it as we walked like nothing had ever happened between the two of us. Like we were Lily and Lucius again, the most elegant and powerful couple Hogwarts had to offer. We would have _beautiful_ children someday.

                There’s something strange about being seen with a popular person. It was like Lucius’s glory simply rubbed off on me, and as we walked to the corridor that would lead us to the room he usually held his raunchy alcohol bashes in, it was like being back in the inner circle of Hogwarts hierarchy. I guess I always had been in one way or another, but since by departure from James, there had definitely been some smirks. I’d show them now.

                When we arrived at the door, Lucius produced his wand from his immensely expensive-looking robes, and muttered at least seven spells to transform the door into a different door altogether. With an ‘alohomora’, we were in. He held it open for me, a chivalrous gesture I’d never experienced with him before, and with a soft swoop inward, let the door click shut behind him.

                The lamps were already lit. It was the first time I’d gone to one of Lucius’s drinking bashes, and I was surprised at how ordinary things looked without all of the people there. There were kegs dispersed throughout the room, and lots of tables with a myriad of liquors on them. There was a bar that Lucius immediately moved towards. I moved with him, looking around in curious silence, and took a seat at it.

                He played the role of bartender.

                "What’ll it be, my Lily flower?" he pulled out a rag and some polish and began slowly rubbing the glistening bar’s top by hand. I was surprised he didn’t just use magic, but I realized he really loved his drinking nights and took pride in them. He polished the bar and I propped my elbow up on it, my chin resting in the palm of my hand, watching him and thinking.

                "Gin, bacardi, what?" he asked when he realized I was staring.

                "A Shirley Temple if you don’t mind," I said.

                "A what?"

                "You know, with 7-Up and that cherry stuff..."

                "It’s nonalcoholic," Lucius raised his eyebrows.

                "I’m not in the mood to end up like my mother," I said with a shrug.

                "One Shirley Temple coming up," he shrugged too, and proceeded to make me one. After dropping three cherries in it and sliding it my way, he got out some scotch and a petite glass in which to pour it into. Sitting opposite me, we drank in silence. He downed one small glass, poured another, and idly swished it around with his pinky finger for a little while.

                "I miss you," said Lucius finally.

                I’d said that to James recently, hadn’t I?

                "I miss you too," I said.

                "I’m glad you’re here," he added. "It’s nice to have you around again. Why did you leave me?"

                I stared down hard at the cherries in my glass and mulled this over.

                "I don’t know," I murmured quietly. "It was stupid, wasn’t it? I guess I just needed to see what it was like without you. I’m sorry, that’s rude—"

                Lucius shrugged and I fell silent.

                "It doesn’t matter. What matters now is that you’re back. You _are_ back, aren’t you?"

                I tilted my head and took a long sip of my Shirley Temple. "Yes, I think I am, as a matter of fact," I said with a smile.

                He smiled back at me and suddenly I felt very shy.

                "So, um, what do you want my help with?" I asked, looking around. Everything was already all set up and it looked perfect.

                "I want you to help me sit here and relax for a few hours before all the stupid oafs start arriving," he said with an amused glint in his gray eyes. He took a sip of his scotch and coolly ran a hand through his hair. I looked at him and took another gulp of my drink to stop the awkwardness. "I know you won’t drink, but listen. We can have fun, can’t we? Just talking? You don’t have to have anything but Shirley Temples if you don’t want to. But I want to talk to you. I love hearing what you have to say, Lily..."

                "We can have fun," I agreed. "And I love talking to you too."

                "We should do it more often," he said.

                "Yes," I decided with a nod and a smile, "we should."

                "We will."

                "Promise?"

                "Promise."

                And I didn’t know what was coming over me, but on an impulse, I reached out and touched the boy that was untouchable. I caressed his large, cold hand my with my tiny, warm one and he stared down at it, biting his lip.

                "I said I loved you, Lily," Lucius said finally, the most handsome he’d looked in a long time, "and I swear to God I still do."

                "Good," I said, feeling a small feeling of gladness pump its way through my body, "I think."

                He leaned in and gently, cupping my face with his free hand, slowly kissed me on the lips. I shut my eyes, giving into something I’d strayed from so long ago, and kissed him back. His touch was delicate and probing, like I was uncharted territory, and I was surprised by how gentle he was being with me. Had I imagined all the bruises he’d given me before? The boy who was kissing me now bore no resemblance to the one who had been so violent two years ago and for that I was glad. He tasted faintly of scotch and peppermint, and he smelled like something fresh and sharp—a bit like pine or basil, actually. I drank him in, slowly becoming intoxicated, not by alcohol but by him and his tender kisses.

                We parted to breathe, and I was the one to come forward and kiss him again. I wanted to press my lips into his and melt entirely on the spot. It had been so long since I’d felt loved like this—it had been _so long_ since I’d had another person to hold and kiss and hold onto.

                Lucius kissed me readily, passionately, like he could never get enough. I hung on his lips like nothing else mattered until he separated from me, breathing a little hard, to take a long gulp of scotch.

                I sat back, flushed and happy, and stared at him with stars in my eyes.

                "Welcome home, Lily," he said, raising his glass and nodding his head with an extremely delighted look on his face, "welcome home."

                I raised my Shirley Temple and we clinked glasses. "Here’s to that," I said, and sank down into a heavenly cherry delight.

                _I was home._

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

My gambling night went well. I went, for the first time in awhile, and it felt good to be in control again. I hadn’t realized I missed the whole business aspect of it until I was there again, snapping my fingers at people and sugar coating my voice and fluttering my eyelashes and mentally tabulating all the money I was making as the night progressed. People welcomed me back with open arms. Narcissa clung to me for an hour before I finally sent her off to actually do her job of serving the drinks. Mundungus Fletcher and the rest of the gamblers were overjoyed to see me.

                When I beat Mundungus at poker, I thought he almost wet himself with delight.

                It was wonderful. Everyone looked at me like I was their best friend, and people socialized with me like I was the Princess of the World again. In this world, James Potter didn’t exist. For the first time in my life, I was glad that he didn’t come to gambling nights. I was glad he was ‘too good’ for this. We didn’t need him there anyway.

                Sirius and Arabella talked the whole night, so I took over her responsibilities as the security major. She deserved a break anyway after so many weeks running things on her own. Peter waved to me as I passed, and I smiled.

                Everything had fallen into place. I was getting back on track. The real Lily was resurfacing again, and after nearly two years of acting like such a fucking goody two shoes with James, it was _good_ to be bad. I was breaking a dozen school rules and I’d never felt so alive.

                Hallelujah! The fat lady sings.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

                I studied on the grounds for the Dark Arts Magelet now. Lucius and I sat under our tree. He always had his back to it with his legs spread, and that’s where I sat. He put his arms around me and rested his chin on my shoulder as I read. Sometimes he’d shut his eyes and I’d read the text aloud to him. It sounded sinful and lusty to read about torture and forbidden incantations to him... he would always grin when we got to the particularly dark parts. My dark prince, Lucius Malfoy, fairest of them all...

                We spent all of our spare time, when we weren’t in class or organizing drinking and gambling nights, sitting together under the tree. It was peaceful like that. It felt like everyone else in the world was living at a terribly fast pace; when we were together, we slowed things down and got a chance to actually live in the moment. I’d smooth pieces of his light blonde tresses and he’d kiss my temples so gently I twice thought it was just a butterfly landing in my hair to say hello. We were often quiet, contemplating the world around us in companionship that was far deeper than ordinary words, but sometimes we’d talk about what I was reading or why I wanted to be an Auror.

                Lucius professed careful attention in anything I was interested in. He said he loved to hear me laugh, and that all of this disgusting rot I was reading was spoiling that for him. I never laughed enough, he said. He said I should laugh forever. He said he loved me.

                And when we kissed it was passionate and searching, rapid and frantic, like if we didn’t find a way to show each other how much we cared the whole world would stop spinning. I kissed him like I’d never kiss anyone else again, and he held me like he would a newborn child. He had matured. There was something different about this Lucius... he wasn’t the rough boy I remembered so harshly. This was a gentleman; a Malfoy. He tasted like alcohol. _When he’s drunk he tastes like candy... so, so sweet... just like candy._

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

But there was something else to attend to, something that I hadn’t forgotten. I was dreading the fulfillment of the promise I’d made so long ago to the Marauders: I must perform the spell that would emblazon the Marauder’s Map into their minds forever. It was a dangerous thing, a terribly foolhardy one for a fifteen year old witch to attempt to perform, but I was ready for it. I had studied hard over the course of the year and I knew somewhere deep inside that I could do it. Charms were my forte.

                And yet, I dreaded it. I dreaded the fact that I would have to come into contact with James again. A pit formed in my stomach every second I thought about it. It felt like I was going to be sentenced to death. James was the executioner. The performance of the spell was the noose. The look in his eyes, the look of hate and pain I was sure would be there if I looked into them, was my one last gasping breath leaving my broken body. I wished I had never made the promise, if only because talking to James Potter again was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. He was right up there with facing Lord Voldemort himself. He was misery.

                The day before the term ended, Sirius and Remus came to me and asked if I was ready. I told them I was, so that evening, after curfew, we stole out of the castle with James and Peter in tow and made our way into the Forbidden Forest. With the map in hand, Sirius led us to his tree. I didn’t know how he could find it—the forest was positively pitch black after sundown—but somehow he did, and I recognized it by its largeness and the way Sirius greeted it.

                I guess I was the only one who thought hugging a tree was odd. Remus, James, and Peter did it too, albeit a little less enthusiastically. I stood awkwardly and waited for someone to say I could begin.

                Remus and James began unloading things out of their robe pockets. They set out candles, little bags of herbs that looked a little suspicious, and a few bottles of already made potions.

                "What’s that crap?" I asked, irritable because I was nervous about being so close to James.

                "Stuff," James said shortly.

                I glared at my shoes in the dark.

                "We’ve got some herbs we pinched from the Potions cupboards to sort of curve the full force of the blow of the spell," Remus explained. "You read about that right?  Nuvelweed. It’s supposed to make it less painful for us."

                "Oh," I said, grateful he’d actually answered me. "Yeah, I read that."

                "The candles are to see with," Sirius said.

                "And the bottles are Butterbeer for afterward. We thought we might get thirsty," said Peter.

                I rolled my eyes.

                "And if anyone sets my tree on fire," Sirius felt compelled to add, "I’ll kick their arse."

                "Right," the rest of us said in unison. Sirius puffed up his chest proudly and gave his tree a loving glance. He was the weirdest kid in the world sometimes, I swear.

                "Well, I guess I’ll start then," I said, a little awkwardly.  

                No one said anything, so I cleared my throat, picked up a newly lit candle from the forest floor, and pulled the piece of parchment I’d written the lengthy spell on out of my pocket. Squinting because it was hard to see, I decided it would be best to sit down. In a slow, fluid motion I sat Indian-style on the ground and moved candles closer so that I could see. I drew my wand from my robes and raised it, appropriately, to chest level.

                With a _swish flick,_ I began.

                It seemed like we were out there an eternity. Powerful, hot, burning spell words came tumbling out of my mouth as I read. It seemed like I got to a point where I wasn’t reading the spell anymore... it was reading me. Things poured out of me and choked off my air supply until I was gasping for life, but I preserved and kept reading. I moved my wrist in so many practiced motions that I thought my hand would break off. All four of the boys were engulfed in a golden looking mist that seemed to tear into their faces. I knew I was shifting through their brain tissue, and it frightened me.

                I could _feel_ them.

                Each one was different. There was James. A lot of pain and hurt and strength. He was tougher to go through than the others, as if he was purposely resisting me. He was determined and beautiful and smooth. Everything about him was compact, powerful, and rapturous. It drove me mad.

                Sirius was slightly easier. He was gleeful and powerful like James, but he was less serious and more childlike. He had innocence inside of him that I’d never noticed before. It took me by surprise. Remus was used to pain. I could feel it. Of course I knew this, because of his lycanthropy, but still. He was amazingly resilient and kindness resonated through every molecule in his body. Peter was troubled, shy, and loving. He was the easiest to blow through.

            Finally, I reached the end of my songlike spell and completed it with one last flick of my wrist. I fell forward, gasping for breath, and all four boys sank to their knees around me.

            And then everything went black.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

I woke up the next morning safe in my bed, as if everything had been a dream. Arabella stood at the foot of it, closing my suitcase and locking it with a wave of her wand.

                "Hello, sleepyhead," she grinned as I sat up, bleary-eyed.

                "What happened?" I asked.

                "The boys brought you back early this morning and asked me to pack for you. They said to tell you thank you for whatever it is you did. What _did_ you do? They wouldn’t tell me."

                "I... helped them with their Charms work," I said, with a shrug.

                Arabella gave me a funny look, but wisely let the subject drop. "Right then. Well, you’d better get up. You missed breakfast... the train leaves in an hour. We’ve got to leave as soon as you put some fresh clothes on and brush your hair. Come on, hurry up."

                I gave her a smile, flung the covers back, and stepped out of bed.

                I’d done it. I’d really done it this time.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & &

The Hogwarts Expressed pulled away from the castle, and I stared out the compartment window, watching my home slip away from me. Lucius sat next to me with his hand lightly resting on mine, and he was staring out the window too. Arabella quietly slept across from us, exhausted from packing.

                "Will you write me?" I asked Lucius, never looking away from the castle.

                "Of course," he said.

                "If things get bad..."

                "You can come and stay with me."

                "Thank you."

                "I hate your mother."

                "I hate her too."

                "Lily?"

                "Yes?"

                "I’m going to miss you."

                I turned to him and kissed him softly on the cheek. "There’s always next year, Lucius. There’s always next year..."

 

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

 

Author's Note: Call me crazy, but I actually really like this chapter, especially the first part between Lily and James. This chapter marks the first chapter of Deconstruct I'm actually mildly proud of. :) Oh, and you may have noticed that this is something like my 4th or 5th chapter update tonight--don't let it worry you, I've just decided to get a big move on in regards to posting all of the old chapters. I have stuff done up through chapter 25, so check back periodically through the night, and you should have the full story to date by sometime tomorrow. From there, it will all be fresh writing. A bit scary, eh? Thanks for all the reviews, guys! Keep at it. xoxo. 


	22. The Love Letters

**Deconstruct, a Memoir**

By Solarism

_Chapter Twenty-One—The Love Letters  
_

{This chapter’s song is: My December by Linkin Park.}

 

 

Coming home from Hogwarts turned into something unexpectedly interesting. At first it didn't seem like it would, because of course I remained the oddball outcast of the Evans family. Mother got out her pinto bean rosary every time I walked too near, nervously running her fingers over their bumps in order to comfort herself, and Petunia simply threw nail polish bottles at my head when I walked past her room too slowly. Also, a new unspoken rule had actually emerged while I had been away the past school year: if either of them looked me in the eye they would turn to stone. I stayed in that house in a sort of cold quietness that summer, regarding both my sister and my mother as alien entities I was temporarily forced to be in vague contact with. Except to eat and go to the bathroom, I tried not to leave my room, and even then I tried to do those things only when I was quite positive my "family" wasn't around. I walked on eggshells for those two. I was wary of even letting my owl out for a fly around the neighborhood, in fear of my mother seeing it and having something of a seizure.

          Still, something did happen that turned out to be immensely interesting and entertaining. In the past summers spent away from Hogwarts--the only place I considered to be my home--I had received letters from friends a large part of the time, but this summer things were different. James didn't mail me anymore for one, and for two Lucius did a lot more frequently than he ever had in the past. Arabella's owl also made regular pit stops to my house, but none of these things were really unexpected. Of course James wouldn't bother to write me--when leaving school, we hadn't exactly been on speaking terms. After the train episode, Lucius seemed to consider himself my boyfriend and fiancé and husband all rolled into one again and it showed. Arabella's letters had always come in the past and there was no reason for them to stop now. The interesting thing that happened with the letters was that I started receiving them most frequently of all from Remus Lupin.

          Occasionally there would be one from Sirius slipped in along with Remus’s, but Sirius had been the victim of a falling out with his parents and was now spending the summer at James’s house. This made him unable to write extremely long letters to me without catching a whole load of uncomfortableness from James, so by large and far Remus was the one that kept me connected with the happenings of the Marauders. His letters were surprising because although he and I had maintained a strong friendship throughout all the crap I’d gone through with James, he wrote to me in such a way it made me feel like he was _my_ best friend instead of a Marauder.

          I wrote back to him with the intensity and passion I didn’t dare display in my letters to Lucius and with such honesty that I could’ve been writing to Arabella, who knew and accepted everything about me. Throughout everything that occurred that summer, from my fights with my sister to what dark secrets I discovered in our attic to the way a monarch butterfly landed on my nose one golden afternoon, my correspondence with Remus held fast. It was like I had cast a rope blindly while drowning in the middle of a raging river, and he was the rock I’d somehow got a hold of. With every word I wrote to him and with every new thing he revealed about himself, I felt like I was slowly being pulled back to dry land. He made me feel free again.

          _Dear Lily,_

_How has your summer been going so far? I’ve been having a fairly good time. My parents were glad to see me at home again and my extended family even came for a visit a few days ago. It was really nice to see them again; I discovered cousins I never even knew I had. Yesterday I went to visit Sirius, but his mother was in a wretched mood, so I didn’t stay long. I think Sirius will be staying with the Potters this vacation—his mum really flipped her lid this time. Other than that, I haven’t seen anyone else yet, but I have been keeping in touch with both James and Peter via letter. Peter says to tell you hello, and James… well, you know James._

          _I’m sorry I haven’t written you before now but I thought you might need a week or so to get settled in. I know that you aren’t very close with your family, and I know that they’re Muggles, and I wasn’t sure if they would react badly to an owl swooping in your kitchen window. I’ve instructed Tibbles to go straight to your bedroom window and I hope that will be sufficient, as I wouldn’t want to cause a ruckus in your household but also can’t stand not being in touch with you for much longer._

          _I hope you get a chance to write me back soon because the next full moon is in 6 days and if you don’t catch me quickly, I probably won’t be able to reply until a few days after that. I’m always in terrible condition after my episodes and I’m not in that great of shape a few days prior either. The moon is already starting to make me a little nauseous. I try not to look at it though, so I’ll probably be fine for a few more days yet. If I do get your reply before I go seriously under, I’ll make an effort to write you back as quickly as possible._

          _I look forward to hearing from you soon._

          _Sincerely,_

          _Remus J. Lupin_

 

_Remus,_

_My summer has been boring so far. I know it just started and I really shouldn’t be bored so soon, but I’ve already done all my summer homework and now I’m out of my mind with nothing to do. It’s amazing living in this household. You know how I am at school? How I’m silly and I smile a lot and I act so confident? Everything about being at home takes that away from me. I get reduced to nothingness. There’s this huge, suffocating blanket that keeps trying to smother me every second I’m here. It’s relentless. It’s like it’d be better to die than be here for too much longer. Thank god it’s only until the end of the summer. I’m only a week and a half in and I already am going crazy. I miss Hogwarts like mad._

_It’s really awesome to hear from you again. I’ve been keeping in touch with Arabella and Lucius Malfoy, but of course I haven’t talked to James (and doubt I will for the rest of the summer, actually) and Sirius hasn’t really written yet. Getting that letter from you was like a breath of fresh air. Thanks for remembering to write. It means a whole lot to me, because I’m out here in a world of my own and it’s really, really lonely most of the time. Does that sound needy? I don’t mean to sound needy because I’m not really, you know. I’m just a little crazy right now, I guess, because my mother and sister are awful._

_If I’m ever a mother, I’m going to make sure that my children love me dearly. I’m going to be the best mom in the whole wide world so that I can make up for all the stuff that my mother isn’t. Okay, I know that sounds harsh, but if you could see what she does, Remus… Today I went down to the kitchen to get some breakfast. All I wanted was a stupid banana and you know what? She freaked out and accused me of wanting the banana to perform voodoo on her. Voodoo! Can you even imagine? She’s so ignorant about our world. You can see it in her eyes—that fear. She’s so terrified of everything about me. She thinks she brought a child of pure evil into this world, and she thinks she’s going to blazes for it or something. The hate on her face every time she sees me is practically unbearable. I think one of these days she’s just going to snap, like Sirius’s mum, and kill me in my sleep. Maybe I should put a charm on my door to keep it locked at night from now on._

_My sister Petunia isn’t much better, but I guess she’s slightly more tolerable. She’s taken up with this Vernon Dursley fellow, so a lot of the time she’s out of the house with him. He’s in the business of drills or something like that and he’s really terribly boring. He hates witchcraft as much as Petunia does and knows even less about it (if that’s possible). Of course he doesn’t know what I am yet, but I’m pretty sure he’ll marry Petunia and then we’ll have to tell him. I can’t even imagine the expression on his face—he’d probably drop dead right on the spot._

_I wish I could go somewhere to get away from all of this. Lucius invited me to go and stay with him if things got bad, but I don’t know. It seems a little silly to go over there. You know what he’s like. I wish I could see you and Sirius and Arabella right now, though. I wish I could talk to you guys._

_So, how’s James getting by? And Melissa? The Potters are really wonderful people. Mrs. Potter made me robes the past two Christmases. I still have them. And Mr. Potter’s so funny. James gets his humor from him, don’t you think? And his hair. That hair seems to run in their family. Is James’s hair still as funny as ever? I used to love his hair. It used to bounce about and be crazy all the time like it didn’t care what anyone thought of it. And it’s such a deep black. It’s like someone dipped it in the finest black dye in the entire world and, oh, I’m rambling, sorry. I assume he’s doing okay. He’s always okay, isn’t he? So resilient like that…_

_And how are you doing too? I’m sorry you’re getting sick again. I looked up a lot about lycanthropy recently and people are working on developing some kind of potion that could possibly dull the sickness. It’s still really experimental, but you never know. Maybe in a few years it’ll be available for you. Maybe in a decade science will eventually even be able to cure your condition. Is there anything that I can do to help you? I can’t think of anything on my own, but my thoughts are always pretty muddled these days. If there’s anything—and I mean anything—I can do for you, please don’t hesitate to tell me. Your wish is my command. It’d make me feel a hell of a lot better if I could help. If I could do anything._

_And I have a question. This might sound pretty silly and I know you’re going to laugh when you read it, but please try to take it a little seriously. I kind of have to know. Do you remember when we went swimming in the lake that one time at school and everything was golden and beautiful and soft? We had such a good time. I was just wondering. Did you… did you ever feel like maybe there was something going on between the two of us that day? I know that sounds crazy and totally out of the ballpark and now I’m sorry for even writing it, but yeah. If you could tell me that then maybe that would be good. Because I was just curious, you know. I was just wondering._

_Yours,_

_Lily_

          _Dear Lily,_

 

          _I didn’t know that people were working on a pain duller potion for lycanthropes. That’s very interesting and I’m really glad to hear it. I’m also slightly embarrassed that you now know more about recent developments concerning my condition than I do. Thank you for looking it up, though—that really means a lot to me, and the fact that you want to help out. Unfortunately I don’t think that there’s anything anyone can do for me other than what you’ve already done. You accept me for who I am and have been my friend through the thick times and the thin, and that’s the kind of thing that keeps me going. You’re already doing so much. Feel at ease—the next time I get the opportunity to see you smile, it’ll be enough._

          _I’m sorry about your family. Maybe you could have a heartfelt talk with your mother. Maybe if you explain to her that you’re not as evil as she thinks you are, she’ll finally see the light and get around all this nonsense of hating you. No parent can really hate their child I think. Usually it’s quite the opposite—it takes a lot to convince a parent that their kid is in fact a blithering idiot, and even then they still want to only believe the best of him or her. You’re going to make a wonderful mother someday, I can tell. You’ll have beautiful kids._

          _I wrote to James, and Sirius is staying over there now like I predicted. The Potters are all doing very well. Melissa sends her love, and I’m sure if James was less of a prat at the moment, he would as well. They’re all in good health and Sirius says to tell you that he wants to kiss you senseless. (Wasn’t he supposed to be all taken with Arabella? I’m rather confused here.) Likewise, I’m doing okay. The full moon’s tomorrow night and though I feel queasy and I have a terrible headache, I’ve been much worse before. I won’t be able to write again for a few days though._

          _About swimming in the lake… I’m not sure what you mean about something going on between the two of us. Did I do something to offend you that day? I thought we had a good time too. We should do it again when we go back to school. Sirius will probably want to come this time. He was very put out that he wasn’t invited before. He pouted for days. But, I don’t know, was there something going on between the two of us? I don’t know how to answer that._

          _Sincerely,_

          _Remus_

 

          _Remmy (have you ever thought of going by Remmy?),_

_Clearly you don’t know my mother—and thank your lucky stars for that. I know it sounds ridiculous and at times impossible for a parent to act the way that she does, but I’ll swear on whatever you want me to swear on that I’m telling the complete truth. If it’s impossible for any parent to truly hate their child, then my mother’s a very good actress._

_Her most recent oddity is that she won’t let me go into our attic. I used to play up there as a small child (I absolutely loved the dust, it was like fairy powder), but now that I’m 16—yes, it was my birthday!—apparently I’m too old to be up there. I think she’s hiding something from me, but what does a devout Catholic with suicidal tendencies hide in a dusty old attic? I mean, usually it’s only Petunia and her who live here. I think I should go investigate or something, but I really don’t want to invoke her wrath either. Damn my curiosity._

_Swimming that day with you was beautiful. I guess I was imagining something being there, so nevermind. I’m silly sometimes and I think that… I think that absolutely everyone’s my one and only. That absolutely everyone’s the person I was destined to marry. I mean, I have Lucius. What was I thinking? I’m sorry. I’m so embarrassed now. You won’t tell James, will you? I mean, you can if you want to. I just… he’d laugh at me. He’d think I was awful. He thinks that I hit on you and Sirius enough already. Oh God, my cheeks are crimson._

_Love,_

_Lily_

 

 

_Dear Lily,_

 

          _Happy birthday from Peter, Sirius and I! We’re all over at James’s house for the weekend and we wanted to write to tell you how much we_ HI LILY HOW’S YOUR SUMMER OH MY GOD HI HI HI HI HAHA HI _miss you, and shut the hell up, Sirius._ MAKE ME. _Why are you writing in all capitals? This is new._ Because I’m just sexy like that. HI LILY. _You just stopped the capitals right there._ WHEN? I did not. I so did not. _You so did._ I so did not, mate, shut up. _Okay, we’re forgetting Lily._ Who? _Don’t start._

          _Our point was, happy birthday, and we miss you._ So does James. Mr. Tinglemuffin is oh so forlorn over you Lily. You should write to him. _I told you not to mention James, Sirius!_ Oh she knows he loves her. _Sirius._ Reeeemus? _Sirius._ Reeeeeeeeeeeemuuuuuuus? _You’re a dork_. And you’re studly. _I’m WHAT?!_ Wanna have dinner sometime? _Please die._ MUAH MUAH MUAH.

          Happy birthday Lil-lay-me-down-and-kiss-me-senseless… sweet sixteen is going to be hot. _You’re not going to sleep with her Sirius, calm it down._ Of course not—that’s reserved for Arabella and you, Remus darling. _Oh good God, he’s gone gay, Lily._ Wanna be my bedmate, Remus?! _Send help fast. :(_

          _Love,_

          _Remus &_ SIRIUS THE MAGNIFICENT I SHALL DOMINATE PAHAHAHA HA HA AH HA.

 

 

_Dear Remus,_

_I am the curious girl who realizes she is under the looking glass._

_I worked up my courage and snuck into the attic late last night. This is going to sound even crazier than my mother’s strange behavior, but this is the truth too. What I’m about to say may seem a little shocking, because… well, it sure as hell shocked the shit out of me, but wow. Okay, so I went into the attic and you know what’s in there? Nothing. Nothing at all. It’s still dusty as ever, but all the boxes I remember from early childhood are missing. I don’t know where my mother put it all, but somehow she’s gotten rid of every single thing except for a single old chest._

_Naturally, I opened the chest, my interest piqued. It’s what any normal person would do, right? Well, I opened it to the shock of a lifetime._

_In it are those beautiful old sepia photographs—you know the type, the kind that always make you wish you were alive when that was mainstream just to have a few of those of yourself? They were of my mother. She was so beautiful. She looked a little bit like me, but with more stars in her eyes and a thousand times more gorgeous. She had a fierce look in her eyes that made it seem like she was thrilled with her life and like she just dared you to disturb her happiness. Her mouth was widened in a grin in every one; her teeth were perfect, straight, and blindingly white. She was a classic beauty._

_In every photograph, and there’s about fifty, she’s dressed in American garb—yeah, the old Southern plantation dresses. Those pretty ones. And she has parasols in some of them. She looks like some kind of vividly happy, passionately alive empress or something. My mother looks like some auburn-haired, blue-eyed picture of perfection… all dressed up in her finest and dipped in a sepia tint. Her curls are perfect. The kind of curls you just want to yank and yell "boing!" at. I sat in our attic, enduring the yucky smell that has suddenly come into being, and stared at these photographs. I was at a loss for words. But this, the fact that my mother was quite possibly the most beautiful woman of all time, is not the unbelievably peculiar part._

_Get ready for this. In every picture my mother’s in, there’s a picture of a man too; my father. And he looks the spitting image of James Potter. And yes, I know you’re incredulous right now—just exactly how crazy have I gone?! So I stole one to prove it. Here it is, I’m enclosing it. Look and stare and gasp. But it’s just like James. It’s like his twin. Right down to those fucking god damn dizzy eyes. I think he stole those fucking eyes right out of the fucking night sky. The stars are jealous of the sparkles in his eyes tonight and every night, fucking James. God, Remus, God I want to get over him. And then here is his stupid face. Here is his stupid, smiling face staring up at me from these pictures. My daddy’s face. Look at the back of the picture now. Look, my mother’s handwriting. She’s printed this: William Sullivan and I, at the Sullivan plantation, picnicking. William Sullivan?! The Potters are purebloods, right? Please answer me this. Pureblooded means that this man, this William, can’t be related to James Potter. Right? Right…?_

_Thank you for the birthday wishes, but I just thought you should know, so far sweet sixteen sucks ass._

          _Love,_

_Lily_

_Dear Lily,_

 

          _Take two deep breaths and calm down. I’ll admit that the pictures are similar, but here, I’m enclosing one I recently took of James. They’re very different people. Your father’s face is sharper and more pointed. James has a broader chin and, while yes, he does have the same colored eyes, he also has very different eyebrows. Your father looks like he’d already been through a lot of pain by that stage in his life—note the beginnings of intense frown lines. James is still carefree and happy for the most part. The only worry in his life is that he misses you terribly._

          _I’m now largely convinced that you miss him too. Certainly, the resemblance between your father and James is notable, but no, they couldn’t be related. The Potter family is pureblooded and none of them, as far back as I can trace anyway, are or were American. Pure blooded families usually intermarry in order to keep the family line… well, ‘pure’. So, therefore, calm down. You didn’t have a crush on some hidden cousin or whatever, if that’s what you’re thinking._

          _I do need to say this though. You may want very badly to get over James, but he’s not over you, whatever he may have said before. I cannot stress that enough. When we were at his house, he and I had a talk about you and he admitted that he was sorry for not taking you up on your offer to be friends with him again. I shouldn’t really go into details because I swore not to tell you any of this, but just keep it in mind. He’s sorry, he misses you, and things will get better._

          _I’ll see you on the Hogwarts Express._

 

          _All my love,_

          _Remus_

 

 

& & & & & & & & & & & & & &

 

Author's Note: Uh, this chapter is shit. Sorry! 


	23. Night Swimming

 

** Deconstruct, a Memoir **

By Solarism

_ Chapter Twenty-Two—Night Swimming _

{This chapter's song is: Night Swimming by R.E.M.}

                Coming back to Hogwarts was a relief. How could it not have been after a long summer of discovering mystery after mystery after mystery? And that last letter from Remus had shaken me. I still had the picture of James. I brought it with me to school at the bottom of one of my trunks. The James in the picture didn't like it when I cast him inside of it. He got a stormy, hurt look on his face and bit his lip like he was a puppy I'd just kicked. When I held the picture in my hand, he smiled and waved and ran his hands through his hair and laughed. He looked so happy in his picture. He looked so amazing. I kissed it once, and the James in the picture kissed me back. _As good as I'll ever get_ , I thought bitterly to myself and put it in the trunk once more.

                I met Arabella at the train station and hugged her tightly. We kissed each other's cheeks and she smoothed my hair and we found a compartment to be alone in together. The summer had taken a lot out of her. There was a dark bruise forming on her cheekbone and her eyes were blotchy. Clearly the abuse hadn't stopped; if anything it looked like it had gotten worse. It was hard for her to walk on her left ankle. It felt bent out of place, she said. I tried to get her to let me see it but she refused. "It's bad Lily, just leave it alone. I'll go to the nurse when we get home." She said the word “home” with such a solemn emphasis that I let it drop at that. I made a resolution in my mind to get her out of her house next summer, no matter what I had to do. Whatever had happened to that flat we had planned to share?

                Just as the train started moving and as we sat in eerie silence, someone pounded on our compartment door. We both jumped slightly, but Arabella also flinched. That worried me. She never flinched—she was like metal. Without even waiting for a 'come in', the Marauders popped their collective heads in our compartment and nodded to us. Sirius came tumbling in first, then after him Remus (who looked a little sheepish), and then Peter, and lastly James Potter himself in the flesh (who looked a little sick).

                "Hello, girls," Sirius grinned, and opened his mouth wide to say something more, but stopped when he saw Arabella. She was sitting across from me and her mouth was set in a very firm, very thin line. "Jesus Christ," he said, his voice low. "What happened to you?"

                "Nothing," she said. The sound of the train picking up speed was the only sound for nearly a minute. The boys just stared at her, and then jointly, they all turned to look at me for an explanation. Under their stares, I just shrugged.

                "Leave her alone," I said.

                "We don't leave friends alone when they're hurt," James said softly. There wasn't any anger in his voice, but I didn't dare look at his face. I was sure I would find all the hate I needed there. I stared at my hands, folded quaintly in my lap, and wished he'd get out.

                Sirius turned to Arabella again and looked at her for a long moment, sizing her up. "You might think you're tough, Miss Figg," he said after he was through, "but you're going to listen to me right now. So tell me where it hurts."

                "What are you going to do?" she asked and her voice was shaky. I hoped she wouldn't start crying.

                "Just tell me," Sirius said impatiently, waving away her concerns with a roll of his eyes and a shake of his head. Remus silently sat down next to me. I glanced over to him and gave him a small smile. He smiled back and patted my hand. _Thank Merlin for Remus Lupin_ , I thought silently.

                Peter and James just stood there, looking like idiots.

                "Well," Arabella said, her voice still shaky, "it hurts here." She touched her cheek bone. "And here," she touched her ankle, "and here and here and here."

                Sirius bent down and punctuated every 'here' with a big, sloppy kiss. By the third 'here' I thought she was definitely going to cry, but on the fourth one she burst out laughing instead and pulled him down to sit next to her. He grinned and busied himself pointing out bruises that didn't even exist, kissing them away nonetheless. Arabella laughed her head off, louder than I'd ever heard her laugh before, and tried to push him away.

                Before we could help it, we were all laughing along with them, James and I included. When Peter came and sat on my other side, it seemed settled. Apparently the boys were staying with us for the ride to Hogwarts. While I wasn't pleased about James's presence, I was overjoyed that I got to see the other three again—even Peter gave me an awkward sideways hug in greeting.

                James settled down quietly on Arabella's left and watched Sirius attack her with little kisses with a smile on his face. I quickly looked down again when he felt my eyes on him and turned to look at me. I would never look into his stupid dizzy eyes again, no matter how long I lived. Fuck him, really. He was good for nothing. Stupid Potter. The last confrontation we'd had, right before school had let out the year before, he'd basically called me a whore. A whore for being friends with his friends and for letting Lucius comfort me! Right. He could take that and shove it where the sun didn't shine for all I cared.

                I was on the verge of bursting out and giving him a piece of my mind for everything he'd said last year, regardless of whether my dad looked like him or not, and regardless of the fact that we were in front of other people, when Remus poked me in the ribs. My concentration broken, he leaned in and said in my ear, "You were grating your teeth. Just don't look at him and you'll be fine."

                "Why is he _here_?" I hissed back.

                "Why are you so upset about it? I thought you were the mature one in this situation." Remus took care to speak quietly so that Peter, sitting on my other side, wouldn't take an interest in what we were saying. I didn't think there was much chance of that anyway, as he was reading a Quidditch magazine, but I appreciated the gesture anyway.

                "I'm upset because he's an ass hole. He called me a whore last term, did you know?"

                "Yes, you told me. So did he."

                "Why would he tell you a thing like that? For someone so concerned with his reputation he doesn't seem to know what will and won't do it harm—"

                "Lily," Remus said in a tired voice.

                "What?"

                "He feels bad about it. Didn't you read my last letter?"

                "I read it," I said. "And I'm sorry, but that means shit all anymore. I don't care if he asked about me or whatever it is he did. I asked about him too in the first one I wrote you. I hate him, Remus. I hate him and he hates me. So why is he here?"

                "It really depends in what context you're asking. Do you mean why is he here as in why is he on this planet, still alive, when you hate him so much? Or do you mean why is he in this train compartment with you, trying so hard to get you to look at him?"

                "He's not trying to get me to look at him."

                "He is and you won't, but that's not the point," Remus shrugged. James looked over at us again as if to punctuate Remus's point, and Remus waited until he looked away again to continue. "The point is, to answer your question, he's in this compartment because he followed the rest of us in. We can't kick him out, you know. He's our best friend. I know he behaved badly last year—"

                " _That's_ an understatement," I snorted.

                "But I do understand where he was coming from a little bit. I'm on your side, believe me, I am. But I understand a little bit."

                "How can you say that? After everything? All I did was tell him I liked him…"

                "Quiet. Do you want him to hear this?"

                "No."

                "Then speak more softly please," Remus squeezed my hand and gave me a sympathetic look. "I just mean that I understand that he got scared. You can be intimidating sometimes because you're so passionate and wonderful that people kind of get caught up in you. Sometimes it's just a little hard to deal with a person like that. He cared about you a lot before you told him you liked him."

                "Yes, and afterwards, he called me a whore and refused to make up with me. Right, exactly," I sniffed.

                "But he still does care. He behaved very badly. I'm not condoning that. But please, believe me when I say that he cares about you more than he cares about anyone. He insulted you. He was wounded. In his mind, you sent him mixed signals and then sprang something huge on him—you liking him—which he wasn't ready for. He got really scared so he said mean things and then bolted. Classic. Like a terrified stag, wouldn't you say?"

                I shrugged. "If stags have the power to put poison in their words, sure."

                "And you know how much he hates Malfoy. It killed him at the end of last year to see you so happy with that guy. It absolutely did him in. James is a pretty sensitive guy in his own right."

                "James? Sensitive? Never. You're the sensitive one, Remus."

                "Well, thank you, Lily, but James is too," he shrugged. "He's terribly confused, though, and he regrets everything that came out of his mouth at the end of last year. I'm positive he does."

                I took a long sideways glance across the compartment at James himself. He was looking at me again. When he felt me look at him, he looked away. Sirius started talking loudly about the color of Arabella's hair—the beautiful color of the black part of a dead skunk—and James halfheartedly joined in. He seemed alien to me now. It was like I'd never been friends with him at all. I felt nothing.

                "If he regrets it," I said, "then he can say he's sorry."

                "Well…." Remus hesitated.

                "Well what? I don't think that's asking too much."

                "Well, James is proud."

                "Well, fuck his pride."

                Remus winced at the use of the harsh language, but didn't say anything. "I'm sure he'll come around," he said.

                "You're such an optimist," I said bitterly. "He hates me and I fucking hate him back. If I'm lucky, I can avoid him for the remaining two years we have at Hogwarts. And good riddance I say. He's an ass."

                Remus just sighed. "I think you're going to marry him."

                I looked at him sharply.

                "Why in all hell would I ever want to marry James Potter?"

                "Because you're in love with him," said Remus, "and he's in love with you too."

                "Argh," I said, muffling a shout of outrage, and promptly turned away to face Peter. Fucking optimists. Fucking small train compartments…

& & & & & & & & & & & & & &

                We stepped off the train and into the waning sunlight. Sirius, as he was prone to doing if you didn't promptly get out of his way, knocked into me as he sprang off the train like a caged bird getting its first taste of freedom in years. After pulling me up and brushing me off and profusely and comically apologizing, he ran to Arabella and fell all over himself to make sure she had made the three steps off the train okay. She rolled her eyes at him and he quite literally swept her off her feet. She let out a whoop of protest, but he was already off at a stagger, and he wouldn't let her down no matter how many times she slapped him on the back and no matter how hard she laughed.

                Peter, Remus, James, and I were left to stand there, looking a bit awkwardly at each other. "I suppose we're to carry their bags too, then?" Peter asked.

                "I suppose," Remus shrugged.

                James and I both reached for Arabella's at once, and I snapped my hand back before it could touch his like I'd been burned. I felt him stare at me, but I couldn't bring myself to look back. Suddenly I was terrified of looking him in the eyes, terrified of what I might find there.

                Of course he'd grab for Arabella's. He was oh so in love with her and everything, right?

                He took hold of it firmly and picked it up off the ground. Remus and Peter both took hold of Sirius's multiple trunks—he packed more than any girl I'd ever seen—and so I was left with absolutely nothing to do with my hands except stare at them.

                The three of them seemed to be waiting for me to move, so I moved. I held my head up high and paraded off in the general direction Sirius had taken Arabella, fervently wishing for the day to end. Or for the ground to just swallow me up, right then and there, whichever was more likely.

                And then suddenly, like my knight in shining armor, Lucius was in front of me, pausing with his various trunks to smile at me. "Hello, Lily flower," he said and waved, just like the James in the picture had. I was stunned by the resemblance (once you got past obvious physical discrepancies). The coincidence struck me as amusing and I had a satisfied moment in which I imagined the look on James's face from where he walked behind me. I ran towards Lucius and wrapped my arms around his neck, ditching the guys and hoping it hurt James a whole damn lot.

                On an impulse, I kissed him hard on the mouth and melted into him as he kissed me back. He held me back from him, looking surprised but pleased. "Whoah, whoah, whoah, Lily. Calm down there! It's only been one summer," he laughed.

                "I've missed you like mad," I said by way of an explanation and kissed him again, forcefully and urgently. I hoped James could see the whole thing from where he was standing. I hoped he had a real nice view.

                Lucius just laughed and kissed me back, smirking into my mouth like he'd finally won the war he'd been waging against my emotions since I'd first gone over to James. This one kiss cemented everything to him and to me—we were together again. I'd never felt so powerful.

                Behind me, James spoke. "Well, we'll just catch up to you later then, Lily. I'll see to it your bags get up to your room safely." His voice was quiet, calm, and low. I broke off from kissing Lucius and turned around, looking instead at Remus. I shrugged my apathy.

                "That's okay, Potter," Lucius said jovially. "I'm here now. I can take care of her. Your services won’t be necessary."

                I saw James wordlessly set my trunks down on the ground. "As you wish," he said. Something in his voice put a knot in my stomach. My first impulse was to dash out of Lucius's arms and into James's, but too much had happened between us for that to be a possibility. Instead I nodded a smile to Remus and turned back to Lucius, a little plastic doll grin smothering out the sudden pang I felt inside.

                Lucius waited until he saw the three Marauders walk away, and then he kissed my cheek and then my neck. "I see you missed me," he said, trying to be sensual.

                I shrugged him off. "Let's just get my bags and go inside, okay? I don't want to miss the Sorting."

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

We were sitting in the first Transfiguration class of the year. I sat far back in my chair, not really paying attention, and wondering what the next class we had with the Slytherins was. Learning wasn't fun without Lucius to glance at every three seconds. McGonagall babbled on and on about something having to do with trying to transfigure yourself into another wizard, and while I might've been interested the year before, this year her class was a bore. I knew this stuff already. I was a Mage, wasn't I? And her voice—it could get so _monotone_ on you sometimes. I couldn't wait for Friday night. Maybe I'd try getting drunk for once.

                Yeah, that sounded like a good idea. Getting drunk.

                A wadded up piece of parchment landed on my desk, disrupting my daydream of making out with Lucius with the taste of a martini in my mouth. I looked up, agitated, to see who had thrown it. Nobody was looking at me and McGonagall had her back turned, busy scribbling something on the board--a death threat or something, no doubt.

                I opened it to familiar handwriting.

_ Lily, _

_ Want to go for a swim tonight during dinnertime? Sirius is coming. _

_ Remus _

                I glanced to my left towards the dark blonde boy. He looked the picture of studious perfection, as if he was paying rapt attention to every word McGonagall was saying. James was next to him taking notes. Not even Sirius, behind James, looked up at me. He looked as bored as I felt, though. Resolutely, I turned over the parchment and wrote my reply.

                _Of course. But I haven't brought a bathing suit or anything. I assume the same attire as last time will function?_

                I crunched it up again, waited a moment as McGonagall dropped her piece of chalk, and then chucked it at Remus's desk. Perhaps my aim was a little off, because it hit James in the head instead. (Oh, what a _shame_.) He looked over at me and scowled. I smiled sweetly back, careful to look only at his stubborn chin, and motioned that he should give it to Remus. When he did, I leaned back in my seat again, temporarily satisfied. It wasn't long before the ball of parchment came sailing back at me. I caught it midair.

                _Indubitably_ , it read.

                With a grin, I crunched it up and dropped it into my bag. Night swimming…

& & & & & & & & & & & & &

                I stripped off my shirt and flung it on a rock, grinning into the water where Sirius and Remus were treading. "It's not every day you boys get a strip show like this," I said, feeling happy and beautiful as the setting sun warmed my back with its long, golden rays. I unbuttoned my jeans and slid them off, laughing as I got my feet stuck in them.

                Sirius and Remus laughed too. "You're ridiculous sometimes, Lil-lay-me-down-and-screw-me-senseless," Sirius told me. He splashed some water my way, but they were too far out for anything to get me wet. I slung my jeans onto the rock with my shirt, and giggled at the fact that I was now probably breaking a thousand school rules by being out in the open in only my bra and underwear. Before I could get too embarrassed, I splashed into the water and kicked my way out to the boys.

                That water was slightly warm and calm, like it resisted my kicking and splashing, and barely made a ripple even with the three of us treading like mad. Sirius took it upon himself to kick me in the leg as I reached them, so of course it was my solemn duty to kick him back. Remus watched, amused, as Sirius and I engaged in a kicking fight, and kept his own legs well out of the way. When we got tired of it about ten seconds in, Remus splashed us both.

                "Are you quite finished looking like Neanderthals?"

                "What's a Neanderthal?" asked Sirius, putting a stupid look on his face and letting his front teeth poke out of his mouth.

                "You're an idiot," retorted Remus, but he was smiling.

                "So," I said, "bed mates, huh?"

                Sirius's face lit up in a grin. "You know it, Lil-lay-me-down-and—"

                " _Actually_ ," Remus cut in with a glare, "Sirius suffers from delusions—"

                "Remus drools when he sleeps," Sirius told me happily.

                Remus looked outraged, and shot Sirius the we-so-do-not-sleep-together-and-you- _know_ -it look. "I most certainly do not. What do you do, stand over me while I sleep at night and watch me?"

                "Breathing heavily, I'm sure," I quipped with a grin.

                "Lucius has made her feisty," Sirius nodded to Remus. "I must say, strangely, I approve."

                "Keep it in your pants," I said playfully, giving him a little nudge.

                "But, my dear," Sirius gave me a devilish ogle, "I'm not wearing _any_."

                I simply ignored him and propelled myself around in a circle, leaning back and dipping my hair into the lake water. The sky above me was tinged with gray and gold and clouds with rims dipped in cherry juice. It wasn't a sunset to rival the one we'd had the last time I'd gone swimming here; it was somehow less hesitant and the light was fading faster than it had last spring. Winter was coming soon. The lake would be frozen. No more swimming.

                "We can go ice skating this December," Remus said, as if reading my thoughts.

                "You know I couldn't skate if my life depended on it," Sirius rolled his eyes, looking annoyed.

                "James and I could teach you," Remus insisted with a wave of his hand. Waving his hand caused him to sink a little, and I could feel his legs kick faster, close to mine.

                Sirius merely sighed. It sounded to me like this was an old argument, one that James and Remus had apparently never won.

                "If you weren't so terrified of falling…" Remus shrugged.

                "I am not ' _so terrified_ '," Sirius said. "I'm just not going to cling onto the two of you like a buffoon. I'm much too old for that."

                "You said you were too old for that when we were eleven," Remus laughed.

                "Shut up, Lily's here!"

                "She doesn't care."

                "She does. She's going to make fun of me and tell Arabella."

                "Oh, your precious Arabella," grinned Remus good-naturedly, "and of course, you don't want precious Lily to know about your fear of falling either."

                "I'm not afraid of falling," Sirius said, puffing out his chest. "I'm afraid of ice."

                "Oh, ice! I get it now," Remus laughed. "Ice, of course."

                "Of course. But don't tell Lily that."

                "Because she'll tell Arabella?"

                "Right," said Sirius.

                "Right," said Remus.

                "You know, I can _hear_ you," I frowned, trying hard to follow their topsy-turvy conversation. I shook my head. "Forget it, I'll give you two a little privacy," I said, and filled my lungs with the sweet September air. It smelled vaguely of apples and had the hint of a bitter breeze blowing in from the east, but before I could overanalyze this (it was only air, my _God_ ), I rose up and then sank down under the water, kicking and pushing my way down.

                I was confronted with Sirius and Remus sending currents of water my way from their kicking feet. There was a very nice view of their legs; Sirius's were long and more muscled than I had expected, while Remus's retained the somehow seductively feminine shaping. Both boys had delicate looking ankles and large feet. With an underwater grin, my dirty mind took over. _You know what they say about big feet…_

                _Big socks_. I shut my eyes and smiled, before doing a somersault and plunging myself down deeper. The water was so clear that you could see for hundreds of yards out—it seemed like everything was pure down here. I spotted a bright, happy looking turquoise bush and dove further down to grasp onto it.

                My fist closed around its thick looking branches, and part of the plant broke off in my hand. In my surprise, I opened my mouth and took in a little bit of water. I headed back towards the surface, plant still in hand, and when my head broke the top, I thrust the plant and my fist towards Remus and Sirius.

             "Look," I said, slightly breathless. "I broke something."

                "Congratulations," Sirius said, looking amused.

                "Now we're going to get in trouble," Remus grinned, giving me a little splash.

                "And were you staring at our legs?" Sirius raised his eyebrows.

                "We thought you were staring at our legs," Remus said, nodding.

                "Maybe," I said, my face growing a little hot.

                "So," Sirius paused momentarily before bursting forth, "whose are hotter?"

                "Sirius!" Remus reprimanded, but his face showed that he was curious too.

                "You both have equally hot legs," I said, but I was thinking of Remus's.

                "You needn't sugarcoat it," Sirius said. "I know his are sexier. They've always been sexier."

                "So in addition to standing over me while I sleep, breathing heavily, you also check out my legs?" Remus looked a little alarmed.

                Sirius grinned mischievously and tweaked Remus on the nose. "Oh, so cute."

                Remus gave me a very frightened look and I laughed.

                "Sirius, you're clearly in the closet," I said.

                "Clearly," agreed Remus.

                "No, but I would like to be in the closet with your dear friend Arabella!" Sirius said happily.

                "Oh, _bad_ mental images," Remus cringed.

                I giggled. "I'm almost positive she'd love to be in one with you too. When are you going to ask her out? This is getting rather ridiculous, you know."

                "Well," Sirius shrugged, "when are you going to make up with James?"

                I immediately stopped smiling. "Never."

                "Don't start in on her, Sirius," Remus said, giving me a sympathetic glance.

                I rolled my eyes. "You're one to talk, dear."

                "What? I just saved you from mortal embarrassment on the Hogwarts Express—"

                "And you also _just_ lectured me and told me I was going to marry James Potter. Which I never, by the way, will."

                "Isn't she stubborn?" Remus made a face. "It's cute."

                Sirius smirked. "I think I should leave you two love birds alone for awhile. Perhaps Jamesie isn't the _only_ one with a liiittle bit of a crush on our dear Lily love."

                "I don't know what you mean," Remus said, sounding offended.

                "Of course not," Sirius said, patting him on the shoulder. "Regardless, I'm off for a swim. Don't you kids do anything that I wouldn't do!"

                "You, with your loose morals? Uh huh, that's saying something," Remus rolled his eyes.

                "Don't let him fuck you, Lily," Sirius grinned. "He's probably shit at it anyway."

                "Like you would know!" protested Remus angrily, momentarily forgetting to tread water. He had to kick fast to keep himself up, but before he could say anything more, Sirius had already dove under the water and swam away. Remus sighed, watching his friend push through the water—push away from us, in order to give us 'alone time'.

                "What was that about?" I asked, a small smile on my lips.

                "He thinks I like you," Remus shrugged.

                "Why is that?"

                "I couldn't say."

                "Oh. It had nothing to do with… well. You don't like me then?"

                "Of course I like you," Remus said, smiling now too.

                "In that way?"

                "I—er," he said, looking down into the water, blushing like mad.

                "Do you?" I said, my smile growing steadily larger.

                "It wouldn't matter if I did, because I know full well that you were meant for James. Even if you don't realize it, that is. Also, you're Lucius Malfoy's _girlfriend_ right now, right?"

                "I guess you could call it that," I said, choosing to ignore the James comment as Remus was plainly off his rocker, "but I wouldn't."

                "What are you then?"

                "You know, I'm not sure."

                "Are you ever?"

                "With Lucius? No, never. But I don't want to talk about him." I moved a little closer to Remus and looked up to the sky. The first stars were twinkling brightly, as if winking their approval down at me. I breathed in deeply and kicked my legs hard under the water. I was so close that our legs were almost brushing as they kicked.

                "What do you want to talk about then?" Remus said quietly, and I saw that he was staring at my lips.

                "Are you sure nothing was going on between us last time we went swimming here?" I asked, moving my face even closer to his.

                He didn't take his eyes off my lips, and spoke equally as quietly as before, but he let out a small breathless chuckle. "What, Lily? Are you trying to seduce me?"

                Impulsively, moving too quickly to give Remus a chance to pull back from me, I placed my lips on his and tenderly kissed him. Surprised, he moved backwards quickly, still frantically trying to tread water, but before I could be disappointed, his lips were back on mine again and I could feel his tongue in my mouth. He was gentle, probing, and his lips were as soft as a down pillow. I kissed him sweetly and sensually, placing my arms gently around his neck and only kicking my feet to stay afloat. To compromise for this, he moved his arms through the water faster and had to crane his neck to keep our lips together. I wanted to keep kissing him, for the whole night long.

                This boy, so compassionate and giving, could give me everything that I'd ever wanted in anyone. These kisses were so much more fulfilling than anything Lucius had ever done; it was like being close to, like kissing, an ideal. My heart was pounding in my chest and I could hear the splashes we were making all around us. The fear of Sirius coming back and catching us was positively titillating.

                But then, Remus broke off, gasping, and lightly pushed me away. "I can't do this with you," he said heavily.

                "What, are your arms getting tired? We can go to the shore—"

                "My arms are tired, but that's not it. Lily, you can't just kiss me like that."

                "Why ever not?" I laughed.

                "You can't just _use_ people like that," he said in a pleading voice.

                I stopped laughing abruptly and frowned. "What," I asked, "you think I'm using you now?"

                "I know you still have feelings for James. He is my _best friend_ , Lily."

                "What, am I not good enough for you now, Remus?" I asked, my voice growing low. "Is that it? You just want to pass me back to Potter? God, what _is_ it with you people? Am I not good enough for _any_ of you?"

                "Shut up," Remus said evenly. "You know it's not that. I just refuse to kiss you anymore. I won't have my friendship with you ruined in the same way your friendship with James is."

                "It wouldn't be like that," I said, choking at the unfairness of it all.

                "Maybe you should go," Remus said. "We can talk about this later. You're confused right now. I love you very much, Lily, as a friend. We can't do this. I think you know in your heart that this isn't right."

                Why did he have to be so fucking sensible?

                "I guess you're right," I said, staring at him. "Well, I'm sorry for kissing you then."

                "Well, I'm sorry for kissing back."

                "Okay." I stared up at the stars again. It was officially dark. I wondered where Sirius was and when he was coming back.

                "Lily?"

                "What?"

                "I—" 

                Just then, someone else called my name. Remus and I both whirled around in the direction of the shore. Lucius Malfoy stood there, looking down at the clothes I'd left on the rock, looking both bewildered and angry.

                "Lucius!" I yelled, my stomach plunging. "Over here!"

                He squinted out, looking for me. "I can't see you," he yelled back.

                "Remus," I said quickly, under my breath, "where are your clothes? And where are Sirius's?"

                "Hidden behind some more rocks," he said back, also under his breath.

                "I'll be out in a minute!" I yelled to Lucius. Turning back to Remus, I whispered, "Tell Sirius I said goodbye. I have to go. Don't follow, or he'll really flip out. I'm sorry again. A thousand times, I'm sorry. Can we forget this?"

                "Of course," Remus said, trying to tread water as quietly as he could.

                "Good," I said, "thanks. Okay, we'll talk tomorrow. Bye."

                I turned away from him and away from his kisses, and began to noisily make my way back to the shore. I prayed Lucius wouldn't suddenly gain better night vision and realize that I'd been swimming with someone else too. For some reason, I didn't think that would sit very well with him. I approached the bank rapidly, and when I splashed my way out of the water, Lucius looked at me curiously.

                "What the fuck were you doing out there?" he asked, always one for tact.

                "I felt like a swim," I said, my eyes downcast. A breeze swept by and I began to shiver. "I didn't feel very hungry for dinner so I came out here instead. I didn't have a bathing suit." I looked down and realized I was still only in my bra and underwear. Shame made my cheeks burn red.

                "I was looking for you everywhere," Lucius said, still sounding aggravated. "I was worried when you didn't come to dinner." Still, he shook his head and pulled his wands from his robes. "Accio blanket!" he said. A blanket that looked like it had come from the Slytherin dungeons flew into his hands, and he immediately wrapped it around my dripping shoulders.

                "I'm a mess," I said. "We should go in." I fervently wanted to get away from the lake before Lucius realized that Remus and Sirius were out there somewhere too. I grabbed my clothes from the rock and held them, along with the ends of the blanket, tight to my chest.

                "Alright," Lucius said, but he looked at me suspiciously. "There wasn't anyone else out here, was there?"

                "No," I lied quickly. Maybe a little too quickly.

                "Are you sure?"

                "Of course," I said, putting an arrogant sneer on my face. "Do you doubt me?"

                It looked for a minute like he was going to say that yes, yes he did, but then he smiled. "Of course not, my Lily flower. You must be dying of cold by now. Let's go inside."

                As Lucius put his arm around me and slowly began to walk me back towards the castle, I wondered if Remus had heard me lie about his presence. I could still feel his lips on mine and taste his aura in my mouth. I felt like, if Lucius looked close enough, he'd be able to see Remus's touch all over me. I felt embarrassed; shamed. What had I been thinking? Stupid, stupid girl…

                Behind me, Remus waited in the Hogwarts lake for Sirius.

What I didn't know until later was that he could still feel my lips on his, too.


	24. Dark Love

 

**Deconstruct, a Memoir**

By Solarism

_Chapter Twenty-Three—Dark Love_

{This chapter's song is: Don't Speak by No Doubt.}

 

 

 

 

Remus and I did talk after the night swimming episode, something several years later I still can't forget—something I don't think I'll _ever_ forget, but the trouble with him was that he was always such a morally well-bred, truly pure-hearted best friend. He genuinely cared about James and me, although I thought his excuse that nothing could happen between us simply because James and I were 'made for each other' was a bit idiotic. I tried to kiss him again the next day, but just like he had in the lake, he pushed me away and politely murmured his sincerest apologies; he just "couldn't be my concubine". No matter how vehemently I insisted it would never be like that and that I _wasn't_ using him just to have someone better than Lucius to replace James with, Remus seemed to think that he had me all figured out. He was interested in psychology; I blame Hogwarts' vast library for filling his mind up with (absolutely true) nonsense.

He knew me better than I knew myself. To me, freshly sixteen years old and terribly muddled, it was simply embarrassing. Would I throw myself at absolutely anyone these days? When James had called me a whore, maybe he'd known me better than I'd known myself, too. Before he'd called me that, words like 'bitch' and 'slut' and 'whore' had never affected me much. I'd regarded them like I regarded every other word—they were just _words_. So what if people chose to look down on a certain type of lifestyle? That was their problem, and in my humble opinion, if you were proud of what you were, then other people's words could hold no power over you. It's not like I _was_ a whore; I certainly didn't sleep with people for money… and it's not like I'd never been called a bad name before either. With all the torrents of verbal abuse I received from home, I'd never been a stranger to words that were cast out and meant only to demean my self-confidence. I'd shrugged them off before. I knew what I was; I knew that whatever anyone said, it didn't matter, so long as I knew that they were lies. I felt that I was perfectly safe.

Somehow, when James said it, it had stuck in my head. It had flabbergasted me. He'd said it with such hatred in his voice—spit it out like poison, _whore_ —that it had shocked me. I'd spent the summer reliving the scene over and over again in my head. _My father looked like him._ Did my father call my mother a whore too? I'd never know; I couldn't ask her that. Regardless, for some reason, James saying it had broken the barrier I'd previously believed in with all my heart and soul, and suddenly I realized that words could hurt. If you put all your passion and loathing and death wishes into one angry, spat out word… of course, it was like a magic spell. Considering I was a witch, it had taken me a terribly long time to figure this out. Words especially had deep meaning behind them. They had the power to break or build, and depending on the direction one put behind them, they also had the power to deconstruct and obliterate.

What James had done was deconstructed my first misconception of life; he'd left me somehow naked, scared, alone. It wasn't the first time he'd done it and certainly not the most noticeable, and nor would it be the last time he'd do it, but this was the time that it really rang true in my head. No matter how he deconstructed me—whether through sweet whispers that showed me truth and love and beauty, or through harsh words like 'whore' that taught me rejection and sorrow—he bettered me and somehow made me more real. Before I'd met him, I hadn't been living. I had existed inside a pretty shell, interpreting life to be all of and only the false monstrosities people like Lucius Malfoy had placed before my eyes. I'd been too afraid to venture outside, too afraid to take a peek around for myself. James was the first person who taught me to bring out the best in myself. Even when he was indisputably a moronic dickhead, he was still teaching me in that endlessly complicated way of his.

I didn't know whether to thank him or to hurt him. I decided I'd rather the latter. Our relationship had many indecipherable layers, and sixth year it was more apparent than it had ever been before. He accused me of hitting on his best friends when it wasn't true, and what did I do? I chose to prove him right. I chose to kiss Remus. And Remus was right as well; Remus was always smart like that. I _was_ using him. I was using Lucius, Remus, Sirius, Arabella—anyone, everyone who could help me avoid James and the storminess that surrounded him. It was subconscious. I didn't realize it then, although I would come to in time, but my sixth year at Hogwarts would turn into a large life lesson for me.

As I desperately tried to avoid the past and possible future confrontations with James, I started to destroy myself. I manifested things; even though I could clearly hear the loneliness in his voice, I forced myself to believe that James and I had permanently gone our separate ways. We may have been friends once, but I knew nothing about him now. His eyes were beautiful and dizzy and I loved them the most out of anything in this world, but they were hateful and evil and I could never look in them again. James became Medusa—his eyes would turn me to stone.

The things I did were ridiculous and unnecessary. Many had no rhyme or reason to back them up. There was no logic; only broken, scattered thoughts and desires that disagreed with each other and bickered so loudly I began to think that headaches were simply a normal, expected part of life. I went way out of my way in the castle to make sure to avoid sightings of James. Hogwarts was big enough that I could lose myself wandering its halls if I wanted to, and I often chose to, just for an excuse to get away from him. I constantly worried about the Marauder's Map—would he use it to follow me someday? I was emerald green on it… _wasn't that amusing_?

I was selective, after I gave up on the idea of Remus being my consort, about when and where I spoke to the other Marauders and about what topics we covered. I wasn't above lying to them. Of _course_ I was fine, of course I was getting along okay, of course I was wearing my Mage rings more habitually, of course I was eating regular meals, of course I wasn't driving myself mad… Of _course_ I didn't go days at a time without sleeping. Of course.

A little, thin sheet of loneliness settled down over my soul like a very fine layer of dust. It was hardly protection from the vast outside world, but it was a filmy layer of something that kept me somehow just a little bit separate from everything else. Smiles were often forced; food had lost its taste. There was something inside of me that felt like I was constantly getting rebuffed. No matter who looked at me, even just in passing, I felt like they were somehow judging me. I felt like there was a small hole in my stomach that my intestines wanted to drop straight through. I felt like there was too much air inside of my body. It was like I was only visiting this reality, like I didn't really live here. This wasn't my life. God, it wasn't! I was in denial in the worst way. Denial paved the path of depression in a way that was hardly noticeable, but over time I did indeed become much less happy than I had been the year before.

It's not really fair to call what I went through the majority of sixth year depression, actually. I didn't cry every day or have suicidal thoughts or things like that; I didn't suffer from any chemical imbalance in my brain. Depressed people were not me, I told myself again and again. I was strong; I was Lily. What I was going through was merely… a figment of my imagination! Everything would pass in time. Everything, even James, always _did_ pass—it was, like death and taxes, one of the only things you could count on in life. Change.

After a few weeks of the most unbearable, mind shattering loneliness that I've ever experienced before or since, something new began to awake inside me. There was a tender fire that burned there. It had cooled itself down after my near outburst on the Hogwarts Express. It had lain dormant for the period of desolation that I'd just gone through. Still, however, it was there. A little spark of rage was beginning to burn brighter and brighter inside me. An anger and a passion for destruction flared up. As I battled between the loneliness and the hatred for everything I was lonely for, I let my guard down in too many ways to count.

The worst possible thing that could've occurred during that time period came into existence: a rekindled, fierce relationship with everyone's favorite Slytherin, Lucius Malfoy. Why was this the worst thing possible for me? I'd already kissed him—we were back together! So what did it matter, right?

It was the worst thing, you see, because he was the _only_ one in the whole wide world who had the capability of rendering me completely in rotten inside. So rotten is what I became.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

The stars blazed cold and manic above me. They twinkled and burned with passion; iced over but still so white hot inside that I envied them. They glared down furiously at my head, taking in with their shrewd eyes my night slip and the jacket—Lucius's jacket—that had been put around my shivering shoulders. They disapproved of me for I was weak. They could _see_ it in my watering emerald eyes. I should be punished, said their general consensus. I should be made to _bleed_.

"Doesn't it feel like they're condemning you to death sometimes?" I asked quietly, pointing up with a single finger toward the terrible night sky. My voice came out low, like an accusatory whisper more than the empty question I'd meant. I let my finger, like my words, hang in the frosty air for longer than I'd intended to.

Lucius calmly ignored me and peered ever more serenely into his telescope. The arctic air didn't bother him; he didn't mind winter chills that arrived several months too early. Lucius was, if anything, fond of the cold, and the superiority of celestial bodies hardly troubled him either.

With my free hand, I tugged uncomfortably at the silver chain I bore around my neck. It, like the jacket that kept me warm, was really Lucius's. He'd loaned the coat for my comfort and had presented the chain as a present, but that didn't change that he owned them just as much as he owned me. I didn't bother looking down at it as I pulled it. It was delicate and probably could have broken easily, but I was too apathetic about it to care for its safety. A silver necklace chain had the same meaning as handcuffs and a gag soaked in ammonia. With every fighting breath, I was slowly dying inside, and Lucius was my murderer in some very vague, indirect sort of way.

But I was not innocent either; I was a _passive_ murder victim. In fact, I relished the death that fell upon me. It soaked me with its power and I gave into it with a sweet satisfaction. It was just so much easier to make it seem like Lucius was the killer, the evil one. Maybe no one would notice my own self-destruction if I played my cards right. Maybe I'd go down a martyr. After all, no one thought Marilyn Monroe was a bad person for her suicide—her precious body had been left behind and people had only revered her more for it. Why not let my soul die? It would be okay to live life as an empty shell. Being a good little Gryffindor was extremely overrated…

"Are you still cold, love?" Lucius murmured, never looking up from his telescope. He was stooped over slightly because of his height, his body bent in a graceful arc. Nothing about a Malfoy was ever awkward. Whatever he saw through that long tube must have delighted him, because I could see him grinning into it. I pulled his jacket tightly around my shoulders and watched him with intensity.

"Yes. I'm still freezing. When are we going inside?"

"When I say we are," he said, his voice suddenly sharp, and the smile disappeared from his face. I took a cautious step backwards, not sure why I felt so ill at ease. A pit immediately formed in my stomach. I felt nervous; my eyes darted from the angry stars to my nearly numb feet. I was barefoot.

Lucius had sent a very persistent owl to the window of the girls’ dormitory. It had woken everyone up trying to get in at me to deliver Lucius's message. It had been reckless and dogged. When Arabella had at last flung open the window, it had swooped toward my face, pulling back only at the last second, to drop a piece of damp parchment into my hands.

Lucius demanded my presence in the Astronomy tower—it was an emergency. I'd feared the worst. I thought something terrible had happened to him. I ran all the way there barefoot and in my night slip, cursing the demon owl and worrying about Lucius's welfare. When I got there, freezing and damp from the thick night air, he'd been calmly gazing up at the stars. He'd just wanted to get me out of bed.

Instinctually, I became alert. Anyone who fakes an emergency just to see me in my night slip is a little unhinged. _Be wary_ , something whispered in my ear. _He is dangerous._

After an unusually cold greeting, he'd just stared pleasantly into his telescope. I couldn't for the life of me place why I was a necessary part of his agenda, but after a minute he carelessly took off his jacket and tossed it at me. It seemed settled; in an unspoken plea, he'd asked me to stay. So I stayed, half out of curiosity and half out of the feeling that he'd just stop me from leaving if I tried to go back to bed.

The stars scared me. Perhaps I was paranoid, but the night seemed glaring and angry.

_Why do the good girls always want the bad boys?_

"I love you, you know," said Lucius.

I blinked at the back of his head. He seemed so strong, so proud. I didn't think him very capable of love. Those words sounded so foreign from his lips.

"I love you too," I said automatically like a good little robot.

He had me programmed perfectly.

"I called you here because I want to ask something of you. Because you do love me, I'm confident that you'll acquiesce to my request. I hardly think I should have to mention it, but apparently I do."

felt chilled. "Yes?"

"You're not to talk to other boys anymore, Lily," Lucius said.

I wasn't sure I'd heard him right. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me. I don't want you talking to other boys anymore. You can talk to Arabella and to Narcissa, but you're mine now. If you love me, you'll show your loyalty. I want no more of this Lupin and Black and Potter business."

"I… Remus and Sirius are my friends, Lucius," I murmured, backing slowly towards the wall.

"They're not," he said sharply. He continued gazing into the telescope, looking extremely serene. His back was strong and angled perfectly. Lucius was a beautiful specimen of a human being. He should've won prizes for his good looks. He should've been elected God. "They don't really care about you at all. They're using you. You can't trust anyone but me now, Lily. Look what Potter did to you, after all."

"Remus and Sirius wouldn't do that," I protested, slowly.

"If you're going to bitch around about it and refuse to believe the truth, then get out of here. We'll talk about this again later. It's no skin off my back if you want to put yourself through that crap again. But no Malfoy wife will be branded a whore by our society, do you hear? Think very carefully, Lily. Play your cards right."

"I don't have any cards to play," I blinked.

"You're such a slut sometimes. Get out of here. We'll talk tomorrow."

"I don't appreciate—"

"Get the _fuck_ away."

I was stunned into silence. A lump began to form in my throat. I stood there momentarily, staring at Lucius in disbelief. Where was the sweet boy I'd thought I'd gotten back? Where were the comforting, sweet kisses from the end of last year? He started humming a song, low and under his breath, and seemed unaware that I existed anymore.

Suddenly deeply petrified, I turned and left.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

I fled.

It was the easiest thing to do. My tears had no excuses and Lucius would not kiss them away as Sirius had kissed away Arabella's bruises. They were dirty and would stain my cheeks, all the while under the glare of those ugly headlight-like stars. The darkness of the castle was a warm and comforting embrace to my mindless crying. As sob after sob choked its way quietly out of my throat, and as I walked like a woman condemned down the deserted hallways, there was something almost peaceful about my fit.

I only prayed I wouldn't attract the attention of any wandering poltergeists or professors. The last thing I needed was to be seen barefoot, in a night slip, crying, with Lucius Malfoy's jacket around my shoulders. They'd take away my Prefect badge for sure.

I tumbled along, half-blind through my emotions, fearful of discovery but at the same time nonchalant about the whole damn world. It was fuzzy in my head, but I knew I was headed back to the Gryffindor common room. I tripped and sobbed along, not knowing what I was crying about yet, but very glad that I was. I didn't care if my cheeks were puffing up or if my eyes were getting smaller, or the fact that I was an emotional basket case.

I was just getting shit out, shit that needed to be disposed of, and it was working in every intent and purpose quite well.

I did not take into consideration a certain tall, dark-haired fellow Prefect with a habit for haunting the same hallways at the same time of night under the cover of an invisibility cloak.

Imagine my chagrin when thirty yards down the hall, James Potter's head appeared in midair and squinted through the darkness at me and my loudness with something of a mix of annoyance and concern. His voice was thin and clear. "Lily? Is that you out there? I can't see. It's James."

I stopped walking and looked around for a quick corridor I could turn down or some secret passageway I could slip into in order to avoid him. It was amazing. I could surround myself with people in order to avoid this boy, and yet, out of the sheerest of coincidences, I could also be caught by him in one of my lowest moments ever. I felt sticky-fingered and red-handed. I wanted very badly to turn around and run the opposite direction, but my legs wouldn't cooperate.

"Well, if you won't answer, whoever you are," he said, and I could make out that his face was set in a determined way, "then I'll just be forced to charge you, then."

_Charge_ me? I sniffed. That was new.

An invisible force slammed into me before I could make up my mind which way to turn, knocking me over and stealing the breath from my lungs. I gasped loudly and kicked at my attacker through my long, silky night slip. "Get off me, Potter!" I shouted, far too loudly for that time of night.

I hoped people wouldn't come running. What a sight we'd make—the girl who loved James, and the boy who despised Lily. How quaint.

"Ah, so it is you. Well, you had fair warning," James said, rolling off me and getting to his feet. As he did so, bits and pieces of his person were revealed as his invisibility cloak slipped every which way. It was unnerving to see the upper half of his stomach and parts of his chest and a knee cap here or there appear directly above me. Being caught crying made me cranky.

"You didn't have to _charge_ me, you ass hole," I said, seething. I pushed myself up and could tell he'd bruised my lower back. I was a girl who collected bruises like some girls collected promise rings. Wasn't that so fucking poetic?

"I apologize," he said, sounding infuriatingly humble.

"Help me up," I commanded.

He offered his hand, and I squinted at it through the darkness with wariness. I had meant to ignore his existence. I hated him dearly; he was something to hold close to my heart and resent always. This pattern of conversation did not fit anything I'd imagined in my head, all those nights I was alone in my dorm, cold and lonely.

I took his hand and used it to stand upright. When he'd knocked into me, Lucius's jacket had been thrown from my shoulders. It lay crumpled and defeated on the floor at our feet. Bare shouldered and self-conscious of my night slip, I slowly stooped to pick it up. I felt James's eyes follow my movements as I did so. He was getting a real kick out of this, wasn't he? The girl he'd rejected, puffy eyed and provocatively dressed, still his for the taking any time he asked.

I felt anger rush to my face and felt its familiar flush warm my cheeks. It was good that it was dark. He couldn't see the humiliation in my eyes.

"Are you cold?" he asked softly, as I put the jacket back in its appropriate place around my shoulders.

"No," I said sharply. "Why the fuck did you run into me? I could've been a teacher for all you knew. Even the fucking Headmaster."

"Intuition," he said.

"Intuition? I didn't know you believed in that shit."

"I didn't know you had such a raucous vocabulary."

"What's it to you, ass hole?" I asked, alarmed by his calmness and enraged at his continued charm. _Not this time, dick face,_ I thought to myself. _I'm not going to fall for you and forgive you this time. Nope, not me. Not anymore._

"It's nothing," he said. "But as a fellow Prefect, I'd like to know what you're doing wandering around disturbing the peace of the Hogwarts hallways so late at night. You know the rules. You were supposed to be asleep hours ago."

"I could ask the same of you!" I said. "If you'll move aside and consent not to barge into my person again, I'll gladly get out of your hair and go back to bed."

"It's just not that simple."

"Nothing ever is with you, James. Move."

"Or you'll do what, Lily _darling_?"

"If I had my wand with me, I'd show you what," I said in what I thought was a dangerously low voice.

James laughed in a mocking way that made my cheeks burn more than ever. "Ah, but you see, you _don't_ have it and therefore, as the only one out of the two of us who can work magic right now, I win. Unless you have your Mage rings on you? No? Well, then, see, I do win."

"You don't win, you infuriating scumbag," I said, trying to go around him. His invisible arm shot out easily to block my way. I tried the other side, but he blocked me again. I stamped my foot loudly, not caring if we drew every single teacher in the whole damn school. If I had to go down, I was taking him with me. "You don't win because you have no point."

"I win because I can block you," he said, and demonstrated this by stepping so close to me I was forced to back up.

"You lose because you're going to get reported for this," I told him.

"I'd report you right back. Isn't that, by the way, Lucius Malfoy's coat?"

"None of your business!"

I made a move to duck under his arms, but as they were invisible, it was hard to see where I was going. He forced me back. "Not so fast, Lily."

"What are you playing at, Potter?" I asked him, feeling very ferocious at this point. All my tears were long forgotten and all that mattered was getting the hell away from James. He might have turned a bit insane, actually.

"I want to know why you're out here and why you were crying," he said simply. If I didn't know better, I would've detected a hint of sincerity and compassion in his voice. Luckily, I did know better.

"You gave up any right to knowing my business when you stopped being friends with me," I said savagely. "You can't just flounce around with your stupid invisibility cloak all the time, trying to spy on me or whatever it is you were doing. If we're not friends, you need to back off. Go get curious about your precious Arabella, why don't you? Just leave me alone."

He was very quiet for a moment. I wondered if he'd walked away without me noticing. My rage dissipated quickly, and I took a few steps forward. A very light, invisible hand pressed against my shoulder. "I'm sorry," said James.

"For what?" I asked, feeling helpless now. "There's so many things… for what?"

"For detaining you," he said. His voice was low and thick.

He was sorry for _detaining me_. I shut my eyes and willed myself to gain some composure. It wouldn't do to fall apart for a second time that night, and especially not in front of James. I promised myself I'd never let him see me cry again.

"Please get out of my way," I whispered.

I felt the air change in front of me and knew he had. I stepped past, already falling apart despite how much I was willing myself not to, and knocked into him as I did. Something small and thick plopped onto the ground. I stared down at it. It was a small, leather bound book. I would know that front cover anywhere. I stooped slowly and picked it up.

"My diary," I said, very quietly. I wasn't sure he'd even heard me. My voice quivered.

"Yeah," he muttered.

I opened the front cover, ignoring him, suddenly angry again. The pages looked worn and thin. He'd read it a lot since I'd given it to him last Christmas. I'd almost forgotten about it… I couldn't decide what that meant to me. I didn't know if it was a good thing, if I should be happy, or if it was something else to resent him for. I wondered what he thought of the younger me.

"My childhood," I said slowly. "You know everything about my childhood. You never told me what you thought of it."

"You're a beautiful person," said James, the liar.

I cringed inwardly. Why did his words sound so much like insults? _Mock me once, mock me twice… give me kisses of death tonight._

I handed the diary back to him and passionately regretted ever giving it to him. If I could take it back without looking like a total cold-hearted bitch, I would've. His invisible fingers took it from me and in an instant, it was gone. I felt, for some reason, I'd never see it again. James had so much of me. James had all of me. Had I lost everything? Had I lost myself in him?

I tightened Lucius's jacket around my shoulders and walked away from James without hesitance. The lump inside my throat was a constant reminder of how much I missed him.

"I will _always_ be here for you, Lily," I thought I heard him whisper behind me, in that sweet, soft way of his.

I pinched my lips together and pressed on.

I didn't have time for lies anymore.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

I was on my back, on the Quidditch field, staring up idly at the moody looking sky. Dull, sickly looking clouds streaked their way across an expanse of barren blue. It looked like a desert of apathy from my point of view, but I could not tear my eyes from it nevertheless. Flecks of pollen and dirt in the air obstructed my view from time to time, and my eyes would slowly blink shut and then open again in accordance to the way the breeze blew. In the waning sunlight at the end of September, everything felt simplistic and quiet. I stared upwards and swallowed hard as my fingers closed around a rare burst of yellow dandelions on the well-manicured lawn.

Something about finding the hidden flowers—for I did view them as flowers, not weeds—in such a place where they were so forbidden tickled my fancy. They existed in a temporary wonder world of undisrupted meadowland. Soon, yes, they would be put to death for being the wrong color; a buttery yellow never seems to be as good as a vegetable green. But, that wasn't the point when you came down to it. The point was that by some curious trick of fate, they'd managed to live this long. They hadn't been magicked out yet. Here they were and I found them beautiful. I ran my fingers over their bright yellowness and admired their vibrancy. My eyes never left the washed out blue sky.

It seemed to me that something was swiftly dying inside of me, and in retrospect, something probably was. Whatever died, it took with it both my love for all things rich in complications and my razor sharp intuition. In its wake there came a passive wave of sleepiness. The sleepiness had only one goal and that was to mask the flame of hatred inside of me for awhile; it wouldn't do to burst into flames in the middle of Herbology. My rebellions could rest in the quiet for awhile until they were strong enough to breed with chaos. I did not value time. There was plenty of it, after all.

With a clench of my fist, I uprooted the innocent dandelion and squished out its lovely color between my thumb and forefinger. It was a pleasure to feel it die there in my hand. 

It was such a pleasure to die alone…


	25. Myriad

**Deconstruct, a Memoir**

By Solarism

_Chapter Twenty-Four—Myriad_

{This chapter’s song is: Short Stories With Tragic Endings by From Autumn To Ashes.}

 

 

 

A look, a passing touch, a question asked, a firm handshake… these were all of these things and many others forbidden to me now by Lucius, but strangely, I did not feel jailed. There was a certain sense of nobility in restraint. To me, the girl who held the rest of the world in haughty contempt and disapproval, it seemed the more social things I could avoid, the safer and more secure I felt. People said unkind things and used each other; it was so much easier when the only three people I was allowed to talk to were the people I’d been with since my first year at school. Arabella, Narcissa, and Lucius were not like everyone else. Everybody else out there in the bright, glaring world was conceited and crude—you had only to listen for a little while to realize this. Vapid conversations fluttered on all around me like ridiculously elaborate butterflies socializing around a field of wild flowers. They had so little concern about the world. All they did was partake in vicious gossip and look upon one another with lust and greed. No one considered a dandelion a flower anymore.

Though Lucius’s sudden, captivating authority over me was unusual and utterly overwhelming, his concern seemed endearing in a saccharine and twisted sort of way. He had appointed himself my angel of protection and justice and that made me feel comforted. I took solace in the fact that I had such a strong guardian in a world where, without him, I would otherwise be quite alone and defenseless. What good were other young women like Arabella and Narcissa? Pretty sixteen year old girls were frail then; to me it seemed that the women’s rights movement had never even begun. We were meek much more than we were outspoken. Our bodies were easily bent, easily broken. Our slim fingers clutched desperately onto whatever we could reach to save ourselves from falling into a void of insecurity. We were all of us afraid of the dark.

Lucius was strong and daunting and he kept all villainous predators at bay. Those who would love to do me wrong, people like James Potter, became dreamlike and reminded me of some long-lost, forgotten half-fantasy. My friendship with the dizzy eyed boy seemed fictional now. I began to wonder in part whether I’d made a lot of it up inside my own head or not. Lucius understood this and always listened when I sought him out for his counsel on this. With his velvet words and firm grip, he encouraged the deliriousness that swept over my memories. He understood that the root of all my pent up anger was terror and he understood that the best way to bend me to his will was to tame the terror and bind it solely to himself. The rough rules he slapped on me and our relationship seemed to be his true love and his true power shining through.

An unusual sensation of appreciation for all of his guidance infiltrated my good sense. As Lucius’s grip tightened perceptibly around me and my world, I gave into him with a graceful willingness more and more. I let him burn me and embraced his embers—the sores and rips and pains he gave me were of little consequence. I would reach my nirvana through him and if I destroyed myself in the process, it mattered little. I drank him in and let him intoxicate me the way he intoxicated himself with his pretty liquors. It seemed to me that the both of us were victims of society and that we were one day going to run away from it all together. At the time it seemed terribly romantic. It was us against the world, us against people like James Potter. Lucius was my source of strength. He was my new idol.

My bias for the Malfoy heir was, like everything else about me that year, highly irrational. I adored the titillating confusion of my life. I worshipped trances and forgetfulness. I loved things that anesthetized pain. Best of all my discretions, I loved wandering along the path of destruction.

It was bordered by a flower field of decay.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

"I am of the opinion," said Lucius as he poured himself some fine looking brandy, "that you possess an eloquence that the world has never before known. I am of the opinion that, under the proper tutelage, you could achieve greatness. Would you mind very much being great, Lily?"

I pressed my hands flat against the polished bar and felt the coolness seep into me. I gave thought to his question. Feeling that this was a time to express my charm to its utmost potential, I chose my response carefully. "I would not mind greatness, provided that it was a means to an end of some dear sort. Greatness just for the sake of fame does not interest me. Greatness in the pursuit of achievement does."

Lucius gave me an approving nod and shifted his gray eyes off to the side of the bar where some of his other alcohol sat. Whether he pondered my response or what else he would like to drink, I couldn’t tell. After a most pregnant pause, he turned back to me, took a sip of his brandy, and asked, "And what, pray tell me, my darling, does achievement constitute in your world?"

I poised my fingers on my chin as I leaned in closer to him to smell his smell. I answered him quietly, with a hint of embarrassment and humility staining my thoughts. "Achievement is the gain of something precious and much sought after. It is self-satisfaction and pleasure. It can also be changing the world."

"You say changing the world," noted Lucius, "not bettering it. Did you mean bettering it or changing it?"

"Changing it," I said firmly. I knew that Lucius would approve of ‘change’ more than ‘betterment’.

"Yes," he mused, staring into the amber liquid in his crystal glass, "I do believe that you have the potential to live up to all of my expectations for you. Perhaps you’ll surpass them. You’re too young and naïve for much to be predicted yet, but I see that you have ambition. That’s a noble quality. Salazar Slytherin admired it in his pupils."

A smile played at my lips. "What? Do you mean to teach me as Slytherin taught the original Hogwarts students?"

"And what if I do?" Lucius shrugged. "You could be preposterous or you could be eloquent beyond anyone’s fathoming. Of course, in the end the choice will be made by you alone based on your will to be great. But I must concede that, like every other budding politician, I’d prefer the latter quality in a wife over the former."

I broke into a grin. He talked as though we were already engaged.

"With you by my side," he quietly continued, "we could do more than just change the world, my dear. We could command it and bend it to our will. There’s a strength in you that I recognize and love dearly. You are one of the youngest Mages of our time. You have an endless potential for power and majesty. You could have the world at your feet with your charm, as could I with my grandeur and wealth. We can create a dynasty, Lily. It will be you and me against humanity and we’ll prevail. We’ll kill them all if we have to and rule over their graves."

"What a terrible pity to be all alone in the world, though," I said, leaning farther forward still to plant a delicate, tender kiss on his cheek.

"We wouldn’t be alone," said Lucius, looking princely. "We would have each other. What else is there on this Earth? You and I, we were born to rule. I can see it. One day soon you will too. I’ll teach you everything I know and you will achieve greatness. We’ll make Machiavelli proud. We’ll put Ferdinand and Isabella to shame."

"Your ambition far exceeds anything I’ve ever prior witnessed," I murmured with a low laugh. There was something so sensual in his sophisticated manner of speech. I loved the way his milky skin seemed to be lit up with a pale, angelic light. He was like Lucifer the fallen and I was his biggest cult follower. I was devoted.

"Go now," he said, taking my hand in his and giving it a kiss. "We must obey the time and as of now, I am fifteen minutes late for an appointment with a few of my men. See yourself back to your dorm and mind you walk there with a presence of mind, a sense of clarity, and with your head held pompously high. Do remember that you’re a queen, Lily. I’ll have none of that floatiness you were so fond of last year. Take deliberate steps. Be regal. Mind you stay with Arabella until dinner. Stay away from those pieces of trash who are also in your house. Finish your studies. Comb your hair."

I squeezed his hand in acquiescence to his instructions and stood to go. "Good bye, Lucius."

"Adieu, my love."

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

Arabella finished braiding my hair and tied a neat white ribbon at the end of it to secure it in place. She put her hands on my shoulders as she stood behind me and looked over my head to see herself in the vanity mirror. She looked older somehow, almost imperceptibly. I couldn’t place what was different, but there was something added to her that was almost flattering. As I studied her, she studied me. I felt her eyes find mine in the mirror and suddenly, she started speaking.

"You haven’t talked to Sirius lately, have you?" she frowned. "Sirius Black. You know, the boy you used to be nearly best friends with last year. The one you swam in the lake with. The one we used to stay up all night discussing, and the one that was there for you the day James hurt you? You remember him, don’t you? Tall, black hair, silly with a love for trees?"

I rolled my eyes at her and turned around on my pedestal to give her an annoyed look. "You don’t have to be so sarcastic. I get the point. No, I haven’t talked to him lately. You know Lucius really doesn’t approve of me having a relationship with any boy except him."

"Lucius doesn’t approve of anything," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. She picked up a brush and angrily started brushing her long, thick black hair. "Sirius feels rejected and I’m damn well prepared to side with him on the opinion that you’re starting to betray us all for the love of Lucius and his manipulative, stupid lectures."

"And I’m inclined to think that you’re choosing a ridiculous boy’s opinion of me over your own. Since when does Sirius control what you think?" I snapped. I didn’t like her when she made moves against me. We only worked well as a team.

"You’re in no position to accuse me of anything of the sort when Lucius has you so nicely tucked away in his back pocket. Oh, forgive me. I’ll do you the honor of saying his front pocket, closer to a certain spot where I bet he’d like to have you permanently attached."

"You’re vulgar," I said, standing up and lifting my shirt up over my head. I dropped it carelessly on the vanity and looked around for my pajamas.

"What would it cost you to spend some time with the boys again, huh?" Arabella persisted. "Remus misses you too. They know that you don’t want to talk to them anymore. They know that it’s Lucius that’s keeping you away from them. They’re hurt. Frankly, so am I."

"What do you have to be hurt over, you ridiculous thing?" I asked, finding a suitable night shirt and throwing it on. "I talk to you almost all the time. Lucius has no problem with you or Narcissa."

"I know that if he said the word, you’d quit speaking to me," she said sharply, watching me as I sat down on my bed and examined the work she’d done on my hair more closely. She braided perfectly.

"I wouldn’t," I said absently. "You know that I care about you."

"Well, I thought you cared about Sirius too."

"You’re getting overly sensitive, Aria," I laughed, looking up at her slyly. "Still have a crush on him, do you? You’re always so defensive of the ones you hold close. He likes you just as much as you like him, you know. You’re lucky. You should go out with him."

She sighed. Something about her silence made me give her my attention.

"He asked," she whispered finally.

"Really?" I grinned, jumping up. "Oh, Aria! Wonderful!" I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her tight. "I know you’ve been waiting for him to get up the courage to do it for just about ever. I told him a thousand times to try it, but he’s so silly, and you know how he is, always lusting over those damn trees before anyone else. I’m so happy for you!"

"He asked," she repeated.

"When did it happen? How did he do it? What did you say? Did you kiss him?" I asked, laughing and holding her back to get a good look at her. That’s what was different. She had learned what it was to have love be requited.

She smiled shyly at me, all trace of sarcasm and abruptness gone. She looked pretty. Her brown eyes were large, liquid, and clear. I looked at her and shared in her joy.

"He asked and I said I’d think about it, just two hours ago, and I’ve thought about it and I’m going to tell him yes tomorrow morning. I thought I’d make him suffer the night without knowing just to be a bitch like that," she grinned slowly.

"That’s awful," I said, but I grinned too.

"It’s finally happened and I can’t believe it," she smiled, putting her hands to her cheeks and looking up towards the ceiling. "It’s amazing," she said. "I’ve liked him for so long and he’s liked me too, and now we’re finally a couple. It’s all come together for me. I’ve waited so long and we’ve traveled down such a weird path. Who would’ve thought back in fourth year that I would end up caring so deeply for him? I love everything about him. Who would’ve thought…?"

And that’s when it hit me, searing through the joy like a hot, dangerous, painful poker.

She’d gotten the boy she’d always cared about, and I’d ruined everything I’d ever had with mine.

Arabella had Sirius, and though I had Lucius, I still felt very much alone.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

Alone, I slowly drew the curtains shut on all the windows of the dorm room and prayed that no one would walk in on me and find me doing what I was about to take part in.

I walked stiffly, resolutely to the bathroom and opened the sixth drawer to the left to reveal the disposable razors we used to shave our legs.

I had made up my mind to scar my body up like never before in a certain plea for the rest of the world to see the ugliness I was certain I had inside. What else had driven James Potter away but the fact that I was hideous and corrupt? Now everyone else could know it, too. I’d make sure…

I picked up a razor and took off the plastic covering. The silver blades glinted prettily in the filtered sunlight that crept in through the curtains, and though they were too small to see my face in, I imagined that my soul was displayed there, all silver and metallic and shining bright. The razor blade looked remarkably like Lucius Malfoy’s eyes. I looked down at it and could tell that it was sharp. A fresh new blade to take away the pain and to demonstrate my weakness for the world… I was so sick and so tired of being taken for someone strong and upstanding. Didn’t everyone see that I was not getting by all right? Surely the whispers would start again when they saw the strawberry gashes smiling up at them from my arms.

I held out my left arm and stared at it. There were no traces of the scars that James had healed so long ago. I remembered the past addiction to cutting and the way I’d adored the red beads that would appear on my skin with every twist of the blade. It was like perspiration in a lovely cherry flavor; it matched a certain color of lipstick Arabella had perfectly. I glanced tentatively out of the open bathroom door and into the empty dorm room, and prayed that no one would walk in and see me. How could I explain my stance? I grew paranoid.

But at the same time, I wished that someone would walk in and stop me. I wanted someone to hold me close and was acutely aware of the fact that there were no strong arms around me to keep me safe and warm. I looked back down to my arm, and then again at the metallic razor blade.

In one elegant movement, I pressed the blade into my arm and twisted it so that the skin tore open and pulled away to reveal a bright red stream of hidden dirtiness: the blood that ran through the whore. I lifted the blade and pressed it down mercilessly again, tearing down as deep as I could and twisting every which way until I felt a beautiful euphoria. I tilted my head back as I cut and enjoyed the rushing, rushing, rushing of it… I felt the excitement race through me and knew that the old me had come back in full force.

I was Lily and I was a cutter.

But then I stopped. Perhaps I thought I heard someone coming down the hallway, heading toward the door. Perhaps I was just struck by paranoia. The euphoria disappeared. I flung the bloody razor blade into the garbage can, slammed the bathroom door shut, and stared down at my arm in horror. A bloody red mess that was starting to pool up glared back at me. I felt shame wash over me, and then its cousin mortification followed swiftly. I took a step backwards, trying to find something to support myself on. Finding nothing, I turned and ran to the toilet.

Holding my own hair back, I proceeded to throw up everything I had.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

"Look at her wrists," Remus said to Sirius in quite a normal voice as they fell into step slowly behind me. I pushed my way out of the Potions’ dungeons and tried to stare straight ahead into the crowd of bobbing students. I was very conscious of the Prefect badge on my chest and the way the bones in my wrists popped out so prettily.

I was also aware of the fresh new scars, concealed under the heavy school robes.

"They’re thin and bruised," Sirius noted, equally as normally. "Someone should tell her that it’s not attractive."

"Someone should tell her that she’s making a lot of big mistakes," Remus agreed.

"Someone should say something," Sirius said, his voice rising higher. He was trying to make absolutely sure that I could hear him above the chatter that rang through the corridors around us. I moved faster, hoping I could lose their voices by pushing my way through the crowd.

"Lily’s such a beautiful girl," Remus said, his voice almost pleading. I knew he was addressing me even if he was talking to Sirius. "Such a beautiful girl, but so scared. So scarred up."

I sucked in a deep breath. He couldn’t possibly know about my cutting escapade. He meant… something else. I pressed between two of our classmates and put some distance between the two Marauders and myself. I tapped more people on the shoulder, pointed to my Prefect’s badge, and pressed on through the crowd.

"Excuse me," I said loudly. "Excuse me, official Prefect business here. I must get by. Please let me pass!"

The last thing I heard was from Sirius. "I think we should tell James about this. I think he has a damn good right to know."

I clutched my books tight to my chest and with a large swallow, I pressed on and pretended I’d heard nothing. I was not allowed to talk to them now. Sirius Black and Remus Lupin did not exist.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

I remember the day I talked to James in the snow the most clearly of that year. It was October and the earliest snow Hogwarts had seen in over 50 years had softly covered the green grounds overnight. The storm had come without warning and had left our world white and pure while we slept. It had passed by the dawn and, as if by magic, half a foot of snow blanketed most of the grounds.

I was the first to wake up that morning. I usually loved sleeping in as long as I could, especially on Saturdays, but maybe I heard the snow calling to me. The ground felt cold as my feet brushed against it, and as I padded slowly over to the window and flung open its curtains, I smelled a sense of purity in the air.

The bright light that filtered into the dorm room overwhelmed me. As soon as my vision cleared and I could see without squinting, I marveled at the beauty of the snow. At first it felt like a dream. Such beautiful snow so early in the year?

I looked around me and saw that Arabella and the other girls were still fast asleep. One look at Arabella’s dark head still peacefully snuggled into her covers made me appreciate how nice it was to be up so early. It seemed like the entire world was at a standstill.

Taking another look out the window and a deep breath, I slowly got down on my knees and began to rifle through the trunks I had under my bed. After a minute, I’d located my galoshes and my parka, my gloves and my beanie. Carefully so that I wouldn’t wake up anyone else, I tugged my nightshirt up over my head and pulled on my other clothes. Carrying the galoshes out the door, I took one tender look back at my dorm mates, and tiptoed down the staircase.

The embers of last night’s fire were only barely glittering in the fire place. Appreciatively, I rushed over and stuck my hands near them for their lingering warmth, and then pulled on my galoshes before carefully exiting Gryffindor tower. Something about being so alone and up so early made me feel devious. I vaguely wondered if I could get in trouble for being caught walking around at such an early hour. The thought thrilled me. I walked faster, smiling, paranoid.

Walking over the snow when I finally got outside, feeling it crunch delicately like so many bones beneath my feet, made me feel omnipotent. I bent down and scooped a little snow into my gloves and tenderly packed it into the season’s first snow ball.

I breathed in the tingly air and felt sure that I’d just been introduced to perfect.

I walked over and down a hill, feeling happy and powerful and freezing.

And then, horribly, my heart stopped and my blood began to race.

James Potter leaned casually against a tree some thirty feet away, looking at me serenely, as if waiting for me to come and speak to him. I knew that in order to save face, I’d have to walk past him. I stared at him coldly as I started my descent, hoping he’d take the hint and let me pass by unspoken to, and drew slowly nearer to his tall, thin frame.

"Why, hello, Lily," he said when I was close enough to him that I was sure to hear. _God damn it,_ I thought. He smiled brightly and said, "You look absolutely ravenous today."

"And you look annoyingly overconfident, as usual. Hello," I said hurriedly, determined not to stop. I wasn’t going to let him spoil my perfect white morning.

He stepped into time with me, carrying a bright green leaf in his gloved hands. He blew out some breath and it appeared in a puff in front of us. I rolled my eyes and tried to walk faster. It was difficult in the snow because he had longer legs than me. "Interesting weather we’re having lately, don’t you think?" asked James.

I looked down at his hands and rolled my eyes again. "Yeah, bad weather. Weird leaf. Where’d you get it? Everything else is white and dead."

"I found it on the snow when I came out here. I’ve been expecting you."

"You’re a fucker," I told him simply.

"I’m holding in my palm infinity," said James, looking down at his hand and the single leaf that he carried, ignoring me with careful precision. "And what a thing to have done, to have picked it up and to have disturbed the universe—something punishable by heartbreak, don’t you think?"

"If you’re going to start preaching to me of all people about heartbreak, James," I said dryly, "you’d best drop your point, your leaf, and check your pride at the door. Why are you even talking to me? I don’t listen to you anymore."

"No," he said, giving me a funny look, "you don’t."

"Don’t stare at me like that," I said, bristling, letting my own breath come out in an undignified puff.

"Like what?"

"Like _that_."

"Like what? I don’t know what you’re talking about," he said, looking back down to the leaf in his hand. "You’re so paranoid sometimes."

"Like you’re judging me. Like you know _everything about me_ that there is to know and like you think that just because you mutter some shit about a leaf that I’m going to believe in all your false little revelations of clarity again. You look at me like you think you’ve got me all summed up. Stop it, James. Stop thinking you still know me. Stop thinking that you still captivate me. You were everything. You were so much. Now you’re nothing and I’ve never been happier," I said, trying uneasily to assert myself to him. He only seemed to be half-listening. He stared down at his palm as if in a dream.

"Whatever makes you think," said James slowly, "that I’m trying to win you back?"

I opened my mouth in shock and offense. "Well, aren’t you?"

"Don’t look so flabbergasted that you’re not the only one who can be self-righteous sometimes," he shrugged.

"You’re being stubborn. You never used to be stubborn, Potter. What happened?" I asked, sneering bitterly at him as he stared down at the stupid green leaf. A breeze passed over us and it fluttered out of his hand and delicately hit the ground. As it did, he looked up at me and locked my eyes with his dizzy radiance.

_James Potter has dizzy eyes and they CAPTIVATE and move and dance and dart so swiftly, and there’s passion like a thousand rages and miracles and I cannot stop staring and a thousand minutes could pass and I’d never know or realize or care all because of those fucking dizzy eyes. Gold, green, brown, copper, silver, hazel elegance all flurried to and fro like something right out of Heaven’s gates… There’s a fire inside. DIZZY DIZZY DIZZY trance…_

James opened his mouth and looked at my mouth, still frozen in the sneer. I looked back at him with sorrow present on my lips and in my eyes. Maybe he could see my soul. Maybe I was really that transparent.

"Nothing happened to me," he said. "What happened to you? When did your smile break, Lily?"

A chill coursed down my spine. I broke the eye contact with him and took a long, shuddering breath. I hugged myself and looked up to the leering gray sky for guidance. "Please," I whispered to no one in particular.

"Please yourself," James said back. "I miss you, though," he added softly after a pause. "I miss that goodness. I miss that warmth."

I stayed perfectly still. Instinctually, I knew that sometimes predators went away if you didn’t make any sudden movements. "I’ll try to make this perfectly clear," I said just as softly, my lips barely parting, "I don’t want to live anymore. I don’t want to be me anymore. I’m not who you think I am James. I’m not anyone anymore. I’m going to disappear."

With a precious, tender frown, James first bit his lip and then did the unthinkable and moved towards me. Before I could protest, his arms were around me and my head was on his shoulder and suddenly the freezing October day didn’t seem quite so cold anymore. It was amazing, I thought, that body warmth could go so far and be so perfectly simple. I bit my lip too and stood there in the unusually early first snow and let him hold me close to him. He kissed my hairline and kissed my cheek and I stood as still as I could and knew, in an instant, that this was what I’d wanted for so long.

James Potter had his arms around me, but somehow I was not happy.

"When you’re lost, you can look and I swear you’ll always find me," he whispered into my hair.

He kissed my cheek, gave me a tight squeeze, and then let me go. With a crooked grimace that looked so awkward on his usually flawless face and a small wave good bye, he started to walk back towards the Hogwarts castle, leaving me to think about him alone in the white, white snow.

A sour taste found its way into my mouth and I began to wonder if maybe that lump in my throat would ever become a permanent fixture in my body.

As I watched James walk away, I knew what I had to do once and for all. It dawned on me as the skies began to clear. I looked down at my feet and saw James’s bright green leaf and the way it stood out so vividly against the blank snow. It seemed so simple to me now.

For years, I’d been living for other people. First for Lucius and Arabella, then for James, now for Lucius again.

Maybe it was time for the first time ever to start _dying_. Dying for myself… yes. Dying. Down, down, down the rabbit hole into the world in which I knew I belonged… It all seemed so simple, so perfect.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

I’d start that very day.

Resolute, I looked again to the sky, and felt completely right.

 


	26. Sleeping Alone

 

** Deconstruct, a Memoir **

By Solarism

_ Chapter Twenty-Five—Sleeping Alone _

{This chapter’s song is: The District Sleeps Alone Tonight by The Postal Service.}

 

_ I will pour my heart out.  _

_ I will say things I do mean disguised as things I don’t mean and I will carefully hand you over my layers. I will strip off my paint coats and I will trust in you and hope that you will see me and love as I am: ugly and bare, crazy and cut. _

_ I will give you anything if you will just spare a moment to listen, if you will just spare a moment for me to talk. I’ve been having some problems lately and I think I would like to tell you if you would only sit still for an hour to hear me. _

_ I am not a pretty girl, nor a particularly clever one in comparison to the great emerging wizards of our age, but I am someone with a soggy heart and a slightly singed reputation. I would like very much if you would take me as I am into your arms and give me a good look over. I would like it if you could see that there is more to me than skin and bones and empty stares. _

_ I swear I’m still alive. I swear I still have the capacity to love. _

_ I am unfolding like a love note folded over and over oh so many times, and I am resting in your lover’s palm with an innocence that I will let you borrow for the night. _

_ Keep me, spare me, shake me. _

_ I am yours. _

An open letter addressed to anyone lay in front of me, somehow complete even without my loopy signature at the bottom. There was no permanence to it and there was no shame. It was truth and simplicity scrawled out in my elegant cursive. It was a plea. It was an accusation.

I didn’t know who I wrote it to or what I wrote it for. It was just suddenly there. In my writing, with my own distinct writing voice—but it just happened. I just wrote it for the hell of it. I stared down and reread it several times over. What was I thinking?

With a roll of my eyes and a long, worn out sigh, I pushed the paper out of my way and pulled my Transfiguration book toward me. Getting distracted from homework was rarely a good thing. I hated going off on tangents, because my mind always wandered to the thoughts I most wanted to avoid. That letter was proof.

Rubbing my eyes with my fists (or maybe rubbing my fists with my eyes… I just wasn’t sure anymore), I tried to remember what I’d been reading about before I’d become distracted. There was a terrible lot of homework that early November evening. Halloween had just passed us and I already felt exhausted with the school year.

When I wasn’t exercising my power as a Prefect and conducting my illicit gambling nights, and when I wasn’t in the company of Lucius—when he wasn’t tutoring me on how to be the perfect emerging lady of society, I was busy killing myself over schoolwork. Somehow though, no matter how many hours I had to work through things, it always felt like I was being spread a little bit too thin. And I had no idea why.

I tapped my quill absentmindedly against the table and let my eyes rove their way around the common room. People sat in clusters everywhere, talking and laughing and eating candies left over from Halloween. Peter Pettigrew was across the room by the staircase and seemed to be trying to flirt with a brown-haired third year. I smiled to myself as she tried to uncomfortably edge away from him.

Some guys never have any luck.

Arabella and Sirius were nearby, also watching Peter with vague amusement. I had a feeling that Sirius had encouraged him to hit on the girl. Sirius always enjoyed when things didn’t work out the way he’d figured they would. He was crazy that way. He had his arm around Arabella’s waist (something that clearly had worked out for _him_ in the end, just as I’d predicted) and she had her head resting on his shoulder as they sat on the overstuffed couch together. They looked like the picture of the perfect couple, like two models out of a magazine paid to look so right together.

Their dark hair and dark eyes made them look almost like siblings in a way. Both were good looking people. There weren’t any blemishes on their perfect skin and there weren’t any traces of aging. When you looked at some people, you could just see the way the murders by the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters had affected them. Arabella and Sirius weren’t like them. They were so untouched. So happy. I envied them a little bit.

Okay, maybe a lot.

I was distracted again by the way Arabella’s puffy, smooth lips found their way to Sirius’s temple and the way he turned his head and lowered his dark eyelashes as his eyes focused in on her chin and her lips and the way her smile was sneaking through. I wondered how it was they’d gotten to like each other so much. Only a couple years earlier, Arabella had thought I was slightly crazy for spending time with the Marauders.

I remembered one time in a train compartment, she’d asked Sirius not to run his hand through his hair because it was sexy. She’d been so opposed to getting to know him and definitely against liking him. And yet, time had altered things, and there they were—together, a couple—and to me, it felt like maybe they’d always been together.

"You’re beautiful, Aria," Sirius told her, his voice carrying over to me.

She gave him a winning flush and wrapped her arms around his neck. Before they could lock lips, I turned my head back to my Transfiguration book and stared down hard at it. I wondered, honestly, what it was like. I wondered the reason why some people worked out and why other people didn’t.

It all went back to James Potter, really.

His best friend and my best friend had worked out, but him and me? No, that was way too taboo. For maybe the billionth time since the Valentine’s Day before, I wondered why he didn’t see anything in me. When we’d been friends, he’d been all for supporting me and acting just like my boyfriend.

It was all his fault. He was stupid and he made things so much more complicated than they needed to be. This was why Lucius was so much easier. At least with Lucius, I knew where I stood. I mean, God. Where did Potter get off pouncing on me in the snow like he had a few weeks earlier? Where on earth did he get the idea that it was okay to hug me like that?

I didn’t want him touching me.

_ Yes, I did. _

No, actually, I didn’t at all. I recalled the way it hadn’t mattered that his arms were around me and that his breath was so warm and near. I’d still felt empty and I’d still been cold. His leaf metaphors didn’t make sense. His cryptic, would-be supportive messages just left me with more questions.

I really wished he’d stay out of my life once and for all.

…

Accordingly, his large hand placed itself on my Transfiguration text. I jumped, yanking my head up and pulling myself out of my stupor just in time to see James Potter’s stupid grin fade from his face.

"What the fuck," I said, ever so eloquently, in what I perceived to be an extremely dangerous voice. "Where did you come from?"

"The stairs. I passed Peter on the way down. He just got rejected by some third year. Did you see him ask her out? Sirius looked sort of busy, but I bet it’s a great story, so I thought I’d ask you," said James, looking at me with hopeful eyes.

He was really pathetic at small talk.

"You’re a jerk," I told him simply, slamming the cover of my Transfiguration book down on his hand. He quickly yanked it out and gave me an uncomfortable wince.

"You should work on being nicer to me. You should let go of the past a little, Lily," he said, shaking the pain away from his hand. He sounded wounded, like a kicked puppy. He was pretty good with manipulation.

I watched him with quiet anger.

"You’re really one to talk about letting go of the past, Potter," I retorted simply after studying his face for a moment.

He shrugged, a self-conscious look on his face, and pulled out the chair next to me. "Do you mind if I sit down? We haven’t talked in awhile. I think I have some things to say."

"Actually, I do mind. I mind a lot."

"Right," he said, and sat down anyway. I glared at him, hoping the hate was shining through in my eyes.

How had I ever liked him? He was such a bastard—everything about him got on my nerves. Why did he think it was okay to talk to me? Why did he think it was okay to sit down so casually? After he’d stomped on my heart and been such a confusing ass hole, it was definitely not okay for him to be here, trying to be around me. So he had some things to say, did he?

_ Nine months too late, James _ , I thought with an inner hatred. I rolled my eyes upward in frustration.

"Lily, did you just roll your eyes at me?" he asked with one of those infamous tilts of his head.

"What?" I asked. I felt like pretending I hadn’t done anything at all.

"You just rolled your eyes at me," he said uneasily.

"No, I didn’t," I said quickly, giving him a disapproving frown.

"Oh yes, you did," James frowned back. "Why did you do that?"

"What? I didn’t do anything. I think you’re turning slightly delirious, James. Why are you here?"

"You just called me, James. That’s a nice change from ‘Potter’… But why are you rolling your eyes? I only came to talk."

"I’m not rolling my eyes."

"Yes, you _are_."

"I’m leaving," I said, pushing my chair back.

"Do you remember last Christmas when you gave me your diaries and you Christmas caroled for me and I kissed your cheek under the mistletoe?" James said quietly, in a rushing torrent that made me pause and give him a hard, withering look.

"Yes," I said carefully after a moment spent gathering my wits together. I scooted my chair back in, albeit slightly grudgingly. "What about it?"

He stared down at his hands and bit his lip. His long, black hair spilled over his face and partially covered his downcast eyes. Those beautiful, long, curly eyelashes of his hovered right about the tops of his cheeks and made him look more handsome than he’d looked all year. I wondered what doing butterfly kisses with him would feel like.

Before I could get too wrapped up in studying his face, he spoke. "I got a letter from my parents today. They want to know if you’re coming home for Christmas like last year."

The way he said ‘home’ made it sound like the Potter house was my house, too. A shiver ran up my spine.

He looked up at me with those amazing dizzy eyes of his and my words got caught in my throat. "Your eyes look blue-golden today," I said in a small voice. "You always have such pretty eyes…" He parted his lips to reply, but thought the better of it. For a full minute I was hanging onto the thread that connected our gazes. I stared into the depths of his eyes and saw myself in them. I looked like a scared, large-eyed little girl. He looked like a young man, so strong and beautiful and upstanding.

James was the single most handsome person that I had ever met.

"Isn’t it a bit early," I asked slowly when I came back to my senses, "to be asking about my Christmas plans? It’s early November. Your mother usually doesn’t ask until the middle of December."

"She’s making you something, I think," James shrugged thoughtfully. "But I haven’t written about you very much in my letters home this year. She wanted to know if you were still coming, is all." His voice went soft.

"Are you asking, or something?" I said, but not harshly.

"No," he said, and my heart flopped over. _Great, James. Yeah, that’s just great._ I set my jaw firmly and silently willed my eyes to stop themselves from rolling again.

"No," I agreed with a resolute nod of my head.

"Okay, I’ll write home and tell her that you’re not coming then," he said, just to clarify, just to drive it all the way home. He shifted his weight from foot to foot uneasily, looking down at me as if I was supposed to say something to him to make him feel like less of a jerk. I decided to oblige him. If he needed validation for the way things were, I could give that. I could give him anything he wanted.

"You might also want to mention that it’s nothing against her. You might want to explain what’s been going on this year."

James fiddled with his hands and looked up towards the ceiling, like he was looking to find a scripted answer ready for him there. When he found none, he let his thumbs start tracing over the secret scars on his hands. I peered curiously at him, wondering if he’d go away if I stared hard enough. I vaguely wondered if it was possible to glare a hole through someone’s head if one really had the will to do it. I wondered how long it could possibly take. I wondered what the hole would look like.

"Look, I’m sorry, okay?" he said, spitting out the words like something poisonous. "That really came out wrong."

"What did? The part where you said you weren’t inviting me or the part with the long awkward silence that occurred as you rejected the very thing you needed most desperately to hear?"

"You’re very eloquent when you’re angry," he said, but there was no smile on his face.

"And you’re very passive when you know that you’ve fucked up," I said viciously.

"I want to be friends again," James said.

"I’m sorry, I can’t do that. No dice," I spat out. "I asked to be friends again awhile ago, and you rejected it flat out. The offer just isn’t open anymore."

"Why not?" he asked softly, biting his lip.

Inside, the butterflies started up. I had urges to reach out and caress his face, his hair, anything that was a part of him. I wanted those late night conversations back. I wanted all that warmth and lightheartedness and...

The butterflies formed a heart inside my stomach. It began to spiral.

"Why not?" I repeated flatly, trying to think of an answer.

"Lily," James said.

"James, you had your chance. I know you think that everything is supposed to work out like a classic fairy tale in the end, but that’s not how life is. You can’t always have your way. You can’t always have your cake and eat it too."

"I never understand that expression. What’s the point of having a cake if you’re not going to eat it?"

"You missed the point."

"There was no point," he said.

"Whatever," I told him, and got up to leave.

_ James Potter didn’t exist. _

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

So then there were things. There were things that reminded me of scents, people, and places. There were hints of things at the edge of my mind. When I tried to capture them, they would sail away from me. I was quite positive I was letting something important slip out of my grasp, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.

It bothered me.

At night it was obvious that I was sleeping very much alone.

I don’t think that that’s supposed to be a problem for virgins. I don’t think that you’re supposed to normally wake up in the middle of the night wondering where your bedmate went, only to groggily remember that there was never any bedmate at all. I don’t think it’s normal to miss a lover you never had to begin with.

There are way too many ways to complicate life.

I sat one night, alone on my bed, breathing quietly in and out to pass the time. Sirius and Arabella were off somewhere doing whatever it is couples do. Lucius was having a guy’s night. Lucius always had guy’s night and got very offended when I called them that. He said the word ‘guy’ in plural form in the same phrase as the word ‘night’ was disgusting and verging on homosexual implications.

Sometimes I fathomed that my boyfriend—or well, you know, whatever he was—could be a gay man in the closet.

We’d never slept together. He’d tried to sleep with me. He’d pleaded and begged and ordered and tricked and had been so romantic that I’d really wanted to, but we never had actually gone and done it.

It kind of bothered me for some reason in the same weird way it bothered me that there was no one next to me to wake up to each and every morning.

At sixteen, I felt eighty. It was like I’d lost the love of my life (maybe I had) or had never had love at all and had only just realized it (maybe I hadn’t). There were pieces of things, of thoughts, that I kept grasping for. It was really terrible to be as bored as I was. When there was nothing to do all day, there was no excuse to stop thinking about my problems. There were no distractions. There was only a heaviness in the air that you could physically feel—like a wet blanket thrown unceremoniously over my head.

Somehow, it felt like I was going to live that way forever. Everything around me was timeless. I was ageless. There was nothing to grasp, nothing to feel, and nothing to understand.

Maybe I had found the meaning of life.

Emptiness.

As I sat there that night on the bed, I thought about James. I thought about James a lot. The way he smiled and the things he carried around in his pockets… I thought about his laugh and how it was like a low, sort of beautiful bubble of a laugh. I thought about the freckles he had, randomly thrown across his neck and shoulders, far away from each other, barely enough to count on your fingers.

I remembered vividly the dip between his nose and lips, that little curve where I’d so many times placed my finger out of curiosity.

I remembered the day that he’d rejected me. The day that I’d confessed up everything I had to him and the way he’d been so shocked, the shimmering moment of hurt that that I’d glimpsed in his eyes. The grimace across his lips burned into the back of my eyelids.

For such a short while I’d been so fucking _happy_. The day he’d taken me out in the rain and we’d danced together and just been alone, with each other, just us… it had been terrific. It had been incredible. I felt like the luckiest, most loved girl to ever exist.

James Potter made me feel like a fairy princess.

I clenched my teeth together and began to sway, listening to myself breathe. Life seemed so temporary. What was the point? There was no purpose to just floating along. I was going through the motions in a most excellent way; I was going through the motions perfectly. But to what end?

I started thinking about all of those times James and Remus and Sirius and Peter had pranked people. I thought about the jokes they played and the way the four of them were so tight with each other. I wondered why no one ever questioned them—their ability to be so perfect together, their friendship, their loyalty, their intelligence, their skill…

Not even Lucius who hated James Potter _vehemently_ wanted to question his perfection.

Naturally, I began to think some more.

Just what was his secret? James had to have a weak point, an Achilles heel.

I thought about how unhappy I was.

Things were going to change. With each and every fucking motion I went through, things were going to change. I was dying now, and I felt like dragging a few people down with me.

And who else, who better, than my perfect adversary, the infamous Mr. James Potter?

It would be done.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

 stepped in front of James, my arms crossed over my chest, with my head slightly cocked to the side. I was very careful to have my best poker face glued on. He couldn’t know my real emotions. No, not this time.

The Gryffindor Quidditch team had just come in from practice. Outside, the sun was setting and the night was growing cold. Inside their locker room it was steamy and heated, both from their body heat and from a comforting, unseen fireplace.

The last time I’d been in here, James and I had been soaking wet and he had been wearing only see-through white boxers. Now, I stood before him, watching him with an inner bitter amusement. He didn’t even notice I was there. After Quidditch, James was way too focused on strategy to realize anything except the fight songs he whistled, the locker in front of him, and the clothes he was taking off.

I shook my head with a little bit of impatience. I decided I’d have to be the one to speak first.

"Why, hello, Mr. Potter," I said only loud enough for James to hear, revealing my presence abruptly.

He jumped about three feet into the air and slammed his Quidditch locker shut in one very fluid, ineloquent movement. Breathing hard, letting out a haggard little noise that threatened to make me giggle in delight, he gave me a wild stare before opening his mouth in something that looked like surprise, horror, and fascination all mixed together.

"Lily," he said, "what are you doing here?"

"I came to talk," I said, putting my flushed face against the cool gray lockers. I could feel a blush creeping up the back of my neck, making its way to settle into my cheeks.

Maybe it was because I was in the hot locker rooms amid a bunch of very attractive teenage boys undressing, or maybe it was just because I was nervous about my plans, or maybe it was because I was standing in front of a half-naked James Potter… but I felt feverish.

"To talk?" asked James, incredulously. "You’re in the middle of my locker room. We’re changing."

"Hey, like you once said," I said without so much as a blink, "nothing I haven’t seen before."

This shut James up. He literally shut his big mouth, looked me up and down with wide, dizzy eyes, and raised his eyebrows as far as they would go. "You don’t say," was all he said.

I pressed my warm cheeks up against the coldness of the lockers some more and gently shut my eyelids. Let him think whatever he wanted. Let him think I’d slept with Lucius. It didn’t hurt to have him stare at me. I just didn’t want to have to look at the disappointment I was sure would be apparent in his eyes.

I heard him open his locker again after a moment of quietness, so I opened my eyes a tiny bit. He wasn’t looking at me anymore.

"So, what is it you wanted to talk about? I guess you won’t mind if we talk as I undress. I’m a bit sweaty," said James, trying his best to sound nonchalant.

He really sucked at trying to sound nonchalant, actually.

"I came to say that I thought over what you said. About being friends. See, Lucius is very protective of me as I’m sure you know," I said, hesitating a little.

"I know," said James, unbuttoning his Quidditch trousers.

I watched his fingers fiddle with the button. He was nervous. You could tell because of how he couldn’t seem for the life of him to get that single button undone. His fingertips stumbled over it again and again, and he looked down at it with intense fascination, as if undoing his pants was as complicated as advanced quantum physics.

I let my eyes rove up his torso. I knew that I was slipping. I was doing exactly what I’d sworn to myself I wouldn’t. I was looking at him, at his body, and loving every inch of him. I was looking at him exposed and without cover. I was looking at James Potter and I was feeling a surge of love.

I quickly pushed this out of my mind and focused only on the side of his head. He finally managed to undo the button, and slowly dragged the zipper down.

He wore checkered blue and green boxers today—oh, oh, side of his head, side of his head. Right.

Yes, I was self-assured. Yes, I had poise. Yes. Of course.

_ Fuck. _

"So, what…?" prodded James, grabbing his pants at the waist and pulling them down. He stepped out of them and I swallowed hard.

_ Damn damn damn damn. _

"So if you want to be friends we have to be secret friends or else Lucius will see to it personally that you are murdered and that I am locked up inside a secret tower somewhere forever and ever until I’m so old he forgets about me and I die," I blurted out in one mad, blinking rush.

James, standing only in those very attractive green and blue checkered boxers, gave me a sideways look before shoving his pants unceremoniously into his locker.

I pinched my eyes shut. No, I would most certainly not stare at his almost naked, sweaty body. No, I would not.

Okay, maybe just a little.

"What do you think?" I asked, slightly tentatively.

James sighed and looked around at his team mates, all of which seemed to be oblivious to my presence. They were strewn out throughout the locker room and James and I were fairly hidden near the back, but I was surprised they hadn’t recognized the smooth clarity of a female voice by now.

The team mate closest to us was Sirius, and he was starting to belt out a very loud song I’d never heard before, hitting all the wrong notes and sliding back and forth all over the place in his socks and underwear. His back was to us and his butt kept doing this odd… twitching thing.

"WHA WHA WHA WHYYY DO YOU CRYYYY MY BABY PLEASE OH PLEASE BABY WHA WHA WHA WHYYY DO YOU CRYYY," sang Sirius.

I cringed at having just witnessed Sirius Black shake his butt in boxers.

Boxers, honestly, were the devil.

But, okay, whatever.

"I don’t know, Lily," said James finally, pulling a shirt out of his locker and shaking out the wrinkles. Hadn’t his mother ever taught him, in all her clothes designing madness, how to decently fold his own clothing? "I thought you said that you didn’t want to see me anymore and that you couldn’t bring yourself to be friends with me."

"But you said you’d always be there for me," I reminded him. I congratulated myself on my deviousness.

"OH BABY YOU COULD TAKE MY HEART ALLLLLL THE WAY DOWN TO ALABAMA BAY BEE BAY BEE PLEASEEE," sang Sirius. I heard a distinctive crash as he hit a locker. The rest of the guys laughed.

"OH BABY WHA WHA WHA WHYYYY DO YOU CRYYY," he sang to let everyone know he was okay.

James cringed as Sirius hit a particularly high note, and put his shirt on. "What are you proposing?" he asked me, and I could tell he was trying to keep the curiosity out of his voice.

"That we start over, from scratch. Forget everything that every happened between us," I lied, speaking quickly now. I felt uncomfortable in the locker room for some reason. James dragged on a pair of jeans and zipped them up.

I felt like every second spent in there, I was going to be caught. Caught and killed, or something crazy like that.

I felt trapped.

"So, like nothing ever happened," repeated James dully, focusing on his button. He managed to get a hold of it easily this time.

He was now fully dressed again.

"BABY OH BABY YOU GOT THOSE LEGGGGS," sang Sirius raucously, "AND I MUST CONFESS OH BAY BEE!"

James rolled his eyes at Sirius. For someone who chastised me when I rolled mine, he sure rolled his a lot too. He pulled out his Hogwarts school robes, put them over his head, and shut his locker. Leaning against it, he nudged the floor with his bare toes.

"But in secret. You want to be secret friends, like no one could ever see us together, or something. Am I following you correctly?" he asked.

"Perfectly," I said. "I mean, think about it. We could talk. But we just couldn’t let anyone know that we’re friends. We could just hang out sometimes, in the common room. We could… be Mage buddies."

"What about Sirius and Remus? I see you’ve recently exiled them as well."  
"I suppose I could phase them into this too," I said.

"OH BABY YOU KNOW YOUR LOVE MEANS IT ALLLLLLL TO ME E E E E EEEEEEE OH YES BABY PLEASE SO WHA WHA WHA WHYYY DO YOU CRYYY MY BEAUTIFUL BEAUTIFUL BEAUTIFUL BABY," wailed Sirius at the top of his lungs.

James and I both cringed.

"Is this singing a regular event?" I asked.

"Oh, every day," James said with a sigh.

"Hm, I pity you. Well, I should get going," I said, standing up straight and straightening out my shirt. "It was lovely to see you again, though. Do we have a deal?"

"You know, it’s funny," James said, raising a finger. He paused, took a good look at me, and sighed. "No, nevermind. I must be crazy or you must be or something, but sure. We have a deal."

"Good," I smiled. My plan was going flawlessly. So far, so good.

"I missed you, Lily," James murmured.

And it _was_ funny.

Because for a second there, and only for a second, the bastard actually looked like he meant it.

"BABY YOU CAN SHINE MY CAR," sang Sirius, who knew absolutely nothing about cars in the first place.

I stuck out my hand, and James met me half way. We shook hands slowly and emerald met hazel as I stared him down, the plastered on smile never leaving my lips.

"Hi," I said in a small voice. "You’re James Potter, aren’t you?"

"Yes," he said back, a smile lighting up his handsome face. "And you’re Lily Evans."

"I am," I said. "You make a new girl fall in love with you every day."

"And you," said James, "find a new way every single _second_ to make me remember that I used to have so much better than this."

I let go of his hand.

"See you later, friend," I said.

"Bye, Lily," said James.

I pushed myself away from the lockers, and using my hands, found my way to the back exit, conveniently located just around the corner. Right before I was about to push the door open and leave, I heard Sirius say something to someone.

"James, you spoiled my solo. Who was that you were just talking to, mate? Where’d she go?"

There was a pause, and I held my breath.

Would he lie to Sirius Black for me?

"Don’t worry about it, Sirius," came James’s voice. "Just don’t worry about it, mate."

With a grin of satisfaction, I opened the door, stepped out into the vast night, and let the door bang shut behind me.

Everything was going according to plan.

Everything.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

Remus Lupin was a sex god.

Arabella and I put our heads together, watching from across the common room, as Remus Lupin sighed and flipped over on the couch, exposing his beautiful, beautiful chest. He stretched languidly, squeezed a fistful of his hair with one hand, yawned, and put his book on his stomach. Aria and I watched carefully as he settled back into piles of red and gold pillows, his body twisting and flexing in the sexiest ways possible as he did so.

"Damn," Arabella breathed. "When did Remus Lupin start looking like _that_?"

"I think you picked the wrong Marauder," I breathed back.

"You kissed that," Arabella gawked, watching as Remus flipped over to dangle his head off the edge of the couch. "Look at him move. Look at his arms. What’s he been doing? What have the house elves been feeding him?"

"He’s always been hot," I said, with a little sigh. She was right. I _had_ kissed that.

Lately, it seemed like everyone had gotten just a little bit hotter. Maybe it was the holidays. Maybe it was the holiday glow that everyone had within them that made them all seem more appealing.

Remus was golden and bright, a kind of wonderful alternative to the dark, passionate attractiveness that Sirius and James possessed. We watched as he slowly parted his lips in a sort of absentminded whim, and raised our eyebrows as we watched him toss an arm over his lower abdomen.

When he moved, he was provocative.

"Is he always this sexy?" Arabella asked.

"Only when he breathes," I replied.

"So, how’s Sirius?" I asked, making small talk as we watched Remus sensually scratch his neck.

"Dead fucking sexy," she replied. "His kisses are so hot."

"I’ll bet," I said, opening my mouth a little bit in excitement as Remus ran his hands down his chest to brush off some of the dust that had fallen out of his book and onto his clothing. It was almost like he was stroking himself…

"I don’t think I should be staring like this at my boyfriend’s best friend and all," Arabella murmured.

"So stop staring," I said, distractedly.

"I… can’t," she said back, brushing some hair out of her face for a better view. "Why did you not ravish him when you had the chance again?" she asked as he twisted around some more. It was like he’d never stop moving. The muscles in his arms were slight and perfect and they looked kissable.

"He wouldn’t let me," I said. "Too noble."

"Oh, screw noble," Aria said. "I’m going upstairs. I can’t stand this. I need to find Sirius. I need to be kissed. Go find Lucius. I’m telling you. It’s too cold not to be in someone’s arms."

"Mmmm," I murmured as she got up from our shared arm chair and stalked off toward the stairs. She kept casting pointed glances back at Remus, and I saw her fists were clenched.

When she disappeared, I tilted my head to watch Remus some more.

I just didn’t really feel like running to Lucius like a good little girl. Being good was really, really overrated.

Suddenly, Remus opened his eyes and met my stare with a look of surprise.

Across the common room, he slowly sat up, swung his legs around, and picked up his book. I watched in mortification. Remus Lupin the sex god had caught me staring.

Gathering what little dignity I had left, I braced myself as he got up, walked across the room and through several groups of chatting second years, and sat down beside me. He was casual, suave, and fucking orgasmic.

"Hi, Lily," he said. "Talking to me yet?"

I stared at his lips, full and swollen.

"Uh," I said.

"It’s been awhile. You look tired," said Remus. "Are you okay?"

"I," I grasped for something to say, "I, yeah. Yes, I mean. I’m okay. How are you, Remus?"

"Extremely horny and waiting for you to hop into my bed," said Remus sweetly.

…

What?

"What?" I said, coming back to reality.

"Uh, I said that I was fine, but getting ready to go to bed," he said, raising an eyebrow at me curiously. "What did you think I said?"

"Nothing," I said, shaking the fantasy away. "It was nothing."

Remus put a hand on my shoulder and looked into my eyes. "You’re still as beautiful as ever," he said. "I miss you a lot. We all do. We should talk later, okay? I never meant for us to stop being friends. You’re the most wonderful girl I know."

"Thanks," was all I could say.

"Have a good night," he smiled warmly.

"Oh yes," I said with a little sigh, "I will."

I watched Remus get up, move toward the boys’ staircase, and quickly ascend the stairs. His butt was really cute, that way he walked.

Really, really, really, cute…

Remus Lupin: sex god international.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

I splashed some water in my face and gazed at my reflection in the mirror. There was a rich burning sensation in my green eyes. I knew it as lust. I saw it often enough in Lucius and had relished it enough before now to recognize it instantly.

But why, why lust?

For what?

I was hungry for something. And what’s more, it definitely wasn’t sex.

If it was sex, I could go and kiss Lucius and guide him into bed easily enough. I could do a lot of things with him if I wanted to. He was always around and never too busy if there was a chance he might get me beneath his sheets. Lucius was like that; such a dick when it came down to it. It’s what he thought with and what he probably spent most of his time thinking _about_ too.

I brushed some excess water off of my cheek with the back of my hand and turned off the bathroom light.

I padded lightly over to my bed and hopped up on it, looking around at my surroundings a little listlessly. I hated being the type of girl who had no idea what she wanted. I hated those girls who would sit around and play games with people because they were confused about themselves.

I was supposed to be self-assured.

But playing games was exactly what I was doing. I was playing them with James Potter.

And it felt good.

I twisted my head back and forth, stretching my neck, and began to swing my feet as they dangled off the side of the raised bed. I wasn’t sure what I’d become, but there had been a definite change in me lately. I’d given into the concept of revenge and had started my plans in motion to go after it.

I wrote crazy love letters addressed to no one and watched a lot of people from across the common room.

Sometimes, I got caught.

Sirius Black couldn’t sing and James Potter was trusting me with everything he had.

Remus Lupin had grown far more attractive than he’d ever been before.

Thoughts swirled around me and I tried again and again to grasp onto them.

There was only thing that I clearly understood and that was that what I was lusting after was revenge. Everything that I saw and everything that I did fueled the fire that was burning inside me to hurt. I wanted to take down everyone that I could with me, but most especially James Potter.

I stared down angrily at the fresh scars on my arms and thought about how I’d like to scar James up some too.

I had a lust inside: not for fucking people, but for fucking people over.

I would start tomorrow.

And then he’d be sorry.

Oh yes, then he’d be sorry…

 

 

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

 

Author's Note: I have one chapter left of the old stuff to post and then it's on to the new Deconstruct. Wahoo! Look out for chapter 26 very soon. Then, I suppose I'll have to start on 27... finally... after 2 years. Wow. :) R/R. 


	27. Gifted

** Deconstruct, a Memoir **

By Solarism

_ Chapter Twenty-Six—Gifted _

{This chapter’s song is: Run by Snow Patrol.}

 

Spending time with Lucius was like attending an exquisite ballet or opera. It was always exciting and passionate; an affair to break out the good perfume for. I would do my hair and become self-conscious around him—was I speaking eloquently enough, did I have enough make up on, was he inwardly laughing at my clumsiness? He was a person that was terribly hard to please. At any given minute, he would rebuke me with a disapproving glare or a sharp-tongued comment. He was caustic, dangerous, and always drunk. I liked his abuse. It was as good as taking a razor to my arm, and sometimes better.

I was having a love affair with masochism.

"Lily," he said one night, turning his gray eyes stormily toward me, "I have been hearing some most distressing rumors lately."

My heart jumped for joy and my pulse accelerated. Warning signs flashed in my head: verbal abuse coming. It was addicting, like a drug…

"What kind of rumors, darling?" I responded mildly, wondering what I’d done now.

"I guess you could call them _locker room_ rumors," said Lucius with disdainful emphasis.

And then my heart jumped into my throat and my stomach plummeted. He knew about James.

I tried to play it off coyly. "I’m not sure what you mean."

"Of course you do, precious," he said, a silky, dangerous smile forming at the very tips of his mouth. "You know that you’ve been lying to me, and I know that you’ve been lying to me about James Potter. You never mentioned you’d sought him out and watched him dress… I’m curious, why did that slip your mind?"

"That? It’s really not what you’re thinking," I said, feeling my nerve slip away. "Who told you that I was watching him dress?"

"That’s none of your business. Potter, for that matter, is none of your business. I thought I told you never to speak to him again." Lucius looked at me, teeth clenched, and I could feel his scorn radiating across the room. "Didn’t I?" he asked softly when I made no move to respond.

"Yes," I said meekly. "You did."

"You’re damn right I did. So why the fuck would you go and seek him out? Huh? I want some answers, you stupid bitch." He rose out of his chair and began to stalk closer and closer toward my seat. I clenched the arms of my chair in suspense.

I had never seen him get this angry.

"Lucius," I said, hesitantly. "Stop it. You’re scaring me."

"GOOD!" he suddenly roared.

My heart skipped a beat. I pressed my back into the chair as best as I could, my eyes darting around the room for a trace of an exit. To get up was suicide; he was directly between my chair and the doorway.

I didn’t know what to do.

Breathing hard, he stood in front of me. "Well? What the fuck do you have to say for your disgusting behavior?"

"I…" I stared up into his eyes, which were blazing with hatred, and felt genuine fear coarse through my body. "I… don’t know."

Before I knew what happened, his fist had connected harshly with my head. The force of it knocked me out of the chair, and I landed hard on the wooden floor. Shock and surprise came first, then a quick burst of anger, and then fear and shame. Within ten seconds, I was crying.

Lucius kicked me hard in the ribs and let out a yell of rage. "You fucking moronic whore. I don’t know WHY I put up with you. You are so USELESS. SUCH A FUCKING DISGRACE."

I cried harder, shaking, clutching at my side in the place that he’d kicked me.

My head was pounding, and for the first time, I experienced dizziness in a bad way.

"Get up, you bitch," he commanded, his voice calm again. "Get up and tell me you’ve learned your lesson."

I continued to cry, paralyzed on the ground in fear.

"GET UP!" screamed Lucius.

I got up. "I’ve—I’ve—I’ve learned—I’ve learned my lesson," I choked out through my tears, shaking with fear and pain.

"Then leave. Get on your feet like a dignified woman and leave. You are forgiven, this time, for now."

"Th-th-thank you," I sobbed, and, crouching, I fled toward the door.

Once I had slammed it shut behind me, the tears started raining down harder, and I ran toward Gryffindor Tower, where I could safely collapse.

Just like that, I had become the victim of an abusive boyfriend.

And I had the bruises to prove it…

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

"I’m beginning to understand, I think, why your eyes are quite so dizzy," I said, under my breath, just loudly enough so that James would hear me. I wanted to make absolutely sure that I was clear in my point, and I didn’t want to repeat myself, but I also wanted my words to seem romantic and almost erratic. I wanted him to get swept up in what I had to say.

"Excuse me? How can you figure something like that out?" asked James with a twitch of a smile. "I was born with them. Isn’t that all there is to eyes?"

"No," I said, speaking a little louder, but purposely inserting a more whimsical and passionate ring to my voice. I diverted my gaze to his suitcase again, the one he’d got out to pack with, so he couldn’t read the tender truth so painfully etched into every inch of my face. "Your eyes are clouded clarity and electrified, like someone’s struck you with a bolt of something dangerous. There’s trepidation and chaos, but it’s all delicate and ordered in fine spider’s web lines, with little flecks of chipped off star dust fallen all around. When they shine, I can see your soul."

James did smile now, widely. "So, I walk around like an open cage, do I? Everyone just peeps in to see my soul on display? My God, I didn’t think I was that transparent."

"You are," I assured him, cuttingly, my temper suddenly flaring for reasons I didn’t understand. He just needed to shut up. He just shouldn’t make light of something so real. I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. Before he could notice the disgust coming out in my voice, I rapidly steadied myself and provided a simple, insincere explanation. "Like a stained glass window overlooking an ocean of unfathomable depth."

"You’re poetic today, aren’t you?" he asked with a hint of annoyance in his voice. Maybe he wasn’t as stupid as he looked. "You’re a bit changed since last time we were friends," said James, in what I thought sounded like an apprehensive tone. He looked at me like he was expecting me to either confirm or deny his suspicion. I didn’t like how he had to be told everything. Why couldn’t he just choose one thought himself and roll with it?

"Yes, I am a lot different," I said, trying my best to sound thoughtful. "I’m not sure that I like that you noticed it so quickly though. I wanted to keep it a secret. In fact, I thought I _was_ keeping it a secret."

"There’s something really a bit off about you," said James with a shake of his head. "I don’t really understand it, but maybe it’s just me being strange. That’s probably it. This holiday madness is really getting to me. I’m sorry if I just insulted you. I didn’t mean to."

"No need to be so apologetic," I shrugged, but inside I felt a burning sensation start up. I had no confidence in the boy that sat before me. He was shallow and crude, and I wanted him to just leave. I wanted him to just _go_. Violence flickered inside of me like my ever present lust did. I felt a strong urge to annihilate everything about James; a curious sensation of both anger and passion.

Luckily, he flashed me a winning smile and touched his fingers to his temples, shutting his eyes and resuming a much more relaxed posture. Instantly, I calmed down. My temper was funny—now and again it would be brilliant and would sparkle like the most powerful of fireworks, but other times it would simply disappear as if it had never been there at all.

Parts of me were foreign, like I was watching someone who sounded and looked just like me through a slightly fogged over window. There was an element of familiarity to my behavior but no rhyme or reason. The person I watched might have been extraordinarily similar to me, but she wasn’t Lily. She didn’t have my presence of mind. It was confusing.

I watched James through narrowed eyes, and was suddenly very glad that I was going to destroy him. A flash of something he’d once said pounded in my ears.

_ "You’re beautiful," said James, the liar. _

I swallowed hard and, clenching my fists loosely at my sides, prepared to start the killing.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

"You are such a liar!" Arabella gasped, her eyes going wide. "Sirius, oh my God." She laughed and hit him over the head, hard. "Don’t tease me like that, you stupid thing!"

He laughed too and ignored her whack. He put his hands on her waist and kissed her forehead excitedly. "It’s not a lie. We’re really going."

"How?" she gasped again.

"Money isn’t a problem," he said. "So why shouldn’t we? You, me, a gondola, the Italian nightlife… I’m not going to let you go home. You’re going to come with me instead."

"But my parents…"

"Can take their problems out on someone else, for once," Sirius finished for her. "Please, please come with me, Aria. I promise I’ll be on my absolute best behavior."

"Well," she said, beaming. She tucked her hair behind her ears and gazed at Sirius in disbelief.

"Arabella, come to Italy with me. Just for the holidays. We’ll see everything. We’ll go in all those museums you’re crazy about. We’ll eat tiramisu. We’ll stay up all night talking and looking at the stars."

"Sirius…"

"Please?"

"I—"

"Please."

Arabella took a hard, scrutinizing look at him.

"I—oh, okay, all right. I’ll go," she said.

"Yes!" Sirius lifted her up and spun her around, laughing. He set her down and kissed her swiftly on the lips. She laughed, put her palms against his cheeks, and kissed him back.

"Lily," she called, breaking away from him, "I’m going to Italy!"

"I heard," I smiled, and picked up my book again. "Congratulations."

Arabella turned back to Sirius and kissed his cheeks. "I love you, I love you, I love you!" she said, practically dying of excitement on the spot.

"I love you too," he said, and took her into a deep, affectionate hug.

As I stared at my book, my eyes not reading the words, I felt something drop inside of me… like something falling out of a pocket. It wasn’t jealousy, it wasn’t excitement, it was just all emotion.

They stood there being happy, and I sat there being drained.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

"Okay, okay!" I laughed, stumbling into a classroom as Remus pulled me in by the wrist. "Let go! I’m here, I’m listening, silly."

He was laughing too. "You’re never going to believe it! Quick, close the door."

"Remus," I grinned, "are you trying to seduce me?"

"Not unless you want me to," he joked. Clearly, someone was in a very good mood. "Close it!"

I closed it. "Okay, okay. Calm down, kiddo. Tell me what’s up. I’m all ears," I smiled. "You’ve got my full attention."

Remus took a deep breath and put his hands on my shoulders bracingly. "Guess," he said in a very level voice, "what."

"I’m not going to guess."

"You are such a spoil sport."

"I am not, I’m—"

"Lily, I have a girlfriend!"

"You have a what?" I blinked.

"A girlfriend," Remus beamed, a tiny dimple I’d never noticed before appearing in his left cheek. He was grinning from ear to ear, positively tickled with himself, and his eyes were twinkling in absolute delight. I just stared at him, slightly aghast.

"Wow," I said finally, exhaling deeply. (Maybe I’d just forget to breathe in again.) I backed up a little so he wouldn’t touch me anymore. I felt like he’d just socked me in the stomach.

"Isn’t it great?" he asked. "I want you to meet her. James and Sirius and Peter think she’s terrific. They met her last night right after I asked her out. Oh, you should’ve seen me… I was so nervous. I was shaking."

"I didn’t even know you liked anyone," I muttered, still feeling blank. Any time someone uses the words ‘great’ and ‘terrific’ within 10 seconds of each other, they’re either being extremely sarcastic and/or false, or they are extremely lovesick. Taking a wild guess, I realized Remus’s case was more the latter type.

I bit my lip hard.

"It’s been kind of a whirlwind romance, I guess you could say," he laughed. "I’ve known her for awhile. She’s a fifth year Gryffindor. You might even know her too, I’m not sure. She’s really funny and smart and she loves music."

"Oh," I said, tonelessly. After a pause, "What’s her name?"

"Amanda."

"Amanda? Not that girl that’s always listening to her headphones?"

"Yeah, her! She’s Muggle-born, like you. Headphones. Those are the things that go on the ears. Yes, headphones. She let me try them on a few times. They’re really quite ingenious."

"Ingenious," I repeated dully. "Right."

"What’s wrong, Lily? You seem so… monotone."

"Huh? Nothing. I’m just not feeling very well. I didn’t think, well, I didn’t think that you liked—actually, I just didn’t think. Sorry, I’m really not myself today."

"It’s okay. We all have off days. Did someone do something to you? Was it James?" asked Remus with a faint smile, all ready to rush to my defense. I looked at him and attempted to smile back, but it failed and died before it ever reached my lips.

"It wasn’t James," I said instead.

"Well, okay then. If you’re sure," he said, clapping his hand on my shoulder. "Try and cheer up though. Maybe Amanda can get you laughing. She’s terribly funny and sweet and I think you’ll like her…" he trailed off, and his eyes darted from left to right. Remus leaned in conspiratorially and said in a low tone, "Of course she’s not like you and Arabella, not at all—she’s incredibly unique. That’s why I like her."

"You like her," I said, in a purposely loud voice, "because she’s not like me. Or Arabella."

"I didn’t mean it that way," he said quickly, looking troubled.

"Sure, I understand," I said, and yawned.

"Hmm," Remus gave me a hard look, and folded his arms over his chest. "Come down to dinner tonight. If I know you, I think you’ll try to avoid it. But please. It’s the last dinner until everyone goes away for the holidays. Just come meet her, okay? You can sit between us."

"Okay," I said. "Maybe for a little while."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

"Hey, thanks," he flashed me a smile. "You’re the greatest, Lily. Really terrific."

"Mm," I said, "I know."

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

I took my time dressing for dinner. On any other night, I would have just tumbled down the stairs, messy-haired and in my school robes, perhaps with my eye makeup smudged and without any lipstick. Today, I knew I was meeting the Yoko Ono of my friendship with Remus. I could feel it. She was already breaking up the band.

With narrowed eyes, I dabbed some of my most expensive perfume on the back of my neck. I surveyed myself in the mirror, all of my things organized so neatly below me on the vanity…

I was pretty in a white dress with my hair up and curled. I’d seen this Amanda girl around before. She was pretty too, and Asian—she had a charm about her. I could see why Remus liked her (although I knew he didn’t just like for looks). I wondered vaguely if James would find her attractive too.

After all, he did tend to get crushes on other people’s girlfriends…

I slammed my hand mirror down on my vanity, slipped on my shoes, and walked down to dinner alone.

Since I’d took so long, the Great Hall was crowded by the time I finally made it all the way down. I picked my way over to the Gryffindor table, making sure to catch Lucius’s eye a little triumphantly as I walked. He sat with the rest of the Slytherins, gazing at me with an unreadable expression on his face. He made a hand motion and started whispering lowly with his companions. They all turned to look at me, and I felt sure he was bragging to them about something.

He took a long sip from his golden goblet. His drink was undoubtedly spiked.

James, a black-haired girl I recognized as Remus’s new love interest, and Remus himself sat together, helping themselves to steak and lobster. Across the table was more crowded. Sirius, Arabella, and Peter were crammed together, but were talking animatedly with Amanda about something. Nearby I noticed Melissa Potter, the first person at the table to notice I got dressed up.

I ignored her, and cleared my throat behind Remus.

Remus, James, and Amanda turned around to look at me. "Oh, wow," said Remus with a bright smile.

"Gee," said Amanda.

"Hail Mary… Magdalene," James said under his breath. I could feel his sarcasm. He smiled at me, though, and I remembered that we were supposed to be friends again. Yeah, friends. Right.

"Hello," I said, "where should I sit?"

"Right here, between me and—" Remus started, with a surprised look on his face. He was looking at my feet. I’d painted my toenails electric blue.

"Between Amanda and me," James said. "Wouldn’t want to split up the love birds, now would we?" He gave me a look. I gave him a look back. What was with him? James? Being a jerk? Joking around with me like he did with Sirius? Hmm…

"Okay," I said, and James slid his plate over to make room for me. It was a tight fit and I was immediately sorry I’d come down at all. On my left was James, who was pressed into my side most uncomfortably, and on my right was Amanda, who was small and compact. She was a good 8 inches shorter than Remus and she had a small, lithe body. She looked athletic—the perfect build for a Seeker.

Amanda wore fancy, dangling earrings, her school robes, and had her hair tied back in an eloquent looking twist. Suddenly I felt silly—I’d attempted to dress up, attempted to look beautiful in a simple white dress. My red hair looked ugly next to her glossy black locks. I decided right away to hate her.

But then she opened her mouth.

"Your dress is really beautiful," she said. "I like it a lot. I wish I had the legs for it."

James took a glance at my legs, snorted, and took a big bite of steak.

"Shut up," I muttered in his general direction, wondering what was causing him to act so bold, and then forced a smile at Amanda. "Thank you," I said. "That’s… nice of you."

She just smiled. "You’re very welcome."

"Don’t worry though," I said flawlessly on sudden vicious impulse, "when you hit puberty you’ll probably grow some legs too." I smiled a big smile, trying my best to look absolutely genuine.

Arabella choked on her vegetables, trying not to laugh.

"Pardon me?" frowned Amanda.

"How old are you, dear? 11? 12?" I let out a tinkle of a laugh. "Don’t you worry now. You’ve still got plenty of time."

"I’m actually 15… It was my birthday a few weeks ago," she said, still frowning.

"15? But you’re so _scrawny_! I simply can’t believe it. No, no. You must be Remus’s little Lolita. 12 it is, dollface," I told her, dismissively.

"I don’t think you—" Amanda started, but I cut her off with a curt nod.

"Don’t worry about it," I said with a silky smile. "Arabella, pass the plate of steaks?"

"At your service," Arabella smiled. She grabbed the plate away from Sirius, who was quietly salivating over the prospect of such choice meat, and helped slide one onto my plate. "Remus," she commanded, hoping to change the subject, "start introducing us."

"Oh," coughed Remus, who had been frowning at me with distaste. "Right. Introductions. Lily and Arabella, I would like to present Amanda. Amanda likes music, reading, and me."

Amanda flushed in this adorable way that I found strangely annoying. I saw her hand reach for Remus’, and he squeezed it. They gave each other the oh-we’re-such-a-cute-couple look over a basket of bread. I looked to the ceiling and sighed, preparing for a long dinner.

"Anyway. Amanda, this is Arabella," said Remus. "Arabella likes trips to Italy, doing odd things like streaking her hair, and Sirius Black."

Arabella rolled her eyes and elbowed a snickering Sirius in the ribs. "Nice to meet you."

"You too," smiled Amanda.

"And _this_ ," Remus continued in stride, motioning towards me, "is the infamous Lily Evans. I think her reputation precedes her." I gave him a funny look, but he simply raised one eyebrow and said without hesitation, "Lily likes swimming in the lake at sunset, kissing people she shouldn’t, and is in love with James Potter, although she’d rather slit her wrists than admit it."

James dropped his fork onto his plate next to me. Its clatter was the only thing I heard.

Sirius laughed uneasily into his fist, and then saw that no one else was. He turned the laugh into a cough.  "Er, more vegetables, Aria?"

"No," Arabella said curtly.  She was glaring at Remus.

"Well," James said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. He tossed the napkin down onto his plate and leaned in so that he could see past both me and Amanda and look Remus in the face. "Now that Lily and Remus are done being passive aggressive and frankly poisonous, perhaps now we can work on establishing civility and, dare I say, actually try to enjoy our dinner? Try the steak if you haven’t already. It’s really superb."

His voice was cutting. Remus and I instantly looked down into our laps, like scolded children hanging their heads demurely.

Amanda laughed. "It _is_ superb. The house elves have really outdone themselves."

"I’ll drink to that," Sirius grinned, picking up his pumpkin juice. He took a long sip and raised his goblet toward Amanda.

She gave him a charming little wink.

I noticed that tonight she was sans-headphones, for once. I almost snorted out loud, but James was still letting his silverware clatter a lot next to me.

I tried to restrain myself, tried to pull against the weight of being bitchy… but it was really useless. Something in me felt like being spiteful.

I turned toward Amanda, set on provoking her, trying to ignore the fuming James to my left.

"So, I’m sorry for being rude and all. You just have to understand how much I care about Remus," I said.

"Ugh," said James loudly, in apparent disgust.

"Do you now?" Amanda asked politely.

"Yes. I care about him as much as he cares about me. He and I have known each other for a long time. He used to like me, you know, before you came along."

"He… did?"

"Lily," Remus said, giving me a furious glance. I’d never seen him look so mad.

"Stop the crap," James put a hand warningly on my shoulder.

"Oh no," said Amanda, "please. Do go on. I’m fascinated."

Feeling more confident, I gave her a simple little smile. "Isn’t he such a good kisser? I’m so glad to meet you because now I finally have someone to compare notes with. Tell me, which turns _you_ on more? When he runs his tongue across your lips or when he sucks lightly on your neck?"

Remus and James both stood up in one fluid, ferocious motion.

Arabella and Sirius looked at each other uncomfortably.

Amanda just stared at me.

"I think you’ll find," I continued bitingly, "that while his passion is strong, his stamina needs a little work." I winked, in mock-charming fashion. "I suppose that’s good for you though. Looks like too much fun would knock you out. Or hasn’t he tried anything with you yet…? Oh dear, well, that’s terrible. And to think—he did all that with me in the course of one amazing, brilliant night in the lake…"

James grabbed my wrist and pulled me up from the table.

"Say good bye, Lily," he said angrily.

"Good bye," I smiled sweetly. "It was truly a pleasure."

With that, James yanked me away from the table and marched me toward the exit. The entire Great Hall seemed to watch as he ruthlessly pulled me along like a little puppet. Murmurs and mutterings broke out. The teachers were shaking their heads.

James thrust me out into the hallway and slammed the Great Hall doors shut.

"Are you really that much of a fucking jealous _bitch_?" he asked me incredulously.

"Maybe," I said, truthfully.

He sighed deeply, and suddenly turned around and punched the wall. "I HATE you sometimes."

"For what?" I asked. "For being rude to Remus’s new little infatuation? What James? Do you love her too? You’ve always had such an affinity for other people’s girlfriends…"

"What is this really about Lily? Are you in love with Remus now?"

"No," I said, getting angry too.

"Then _what is it_? Why do you have to be such a bitch?"

"Don’t call me a bitch," I said quietly.

"It’s what you are!" James turned around, breathing heavily. "God damn you, Lily. What are you going to do, push everyone away until there’s absolutely no one left? Are you going to push them away to get some sick, twisted form of revenge? Can’t you ever let anyone else be happy even for a minute? I mean, I know _you’re_ a miserable little fuck, but come on."

"Language, James…" I sighed. I didn’t like him yelling at me very much.

"Don’t talk to Remus or Amanda again until you can learn some tact," he spat out. He put his hands to his temples and pressed down hard, as if trying to force out a headache. "You make me so angry sometimes."

"I’m sorry," I said. What was strange was that I meant it.

"For what?" he asked, quieting down.

"For hurting your feelings," I said. "I was just mad. Because everyone else gets to be with someone. Everyone else is in love. And I guess I don’t get that. I guess I’m not good enough. And so I was rude. But then Remus went too far. He said that about you and I just snapped. I heard your fork drop and my stomach just… plunged…"

"What are you so worried about?" James frowned. "We’re friends now, aren’t we?"

"We were supposed to be secret friends," I sighed. "But Lucius knows. So I guess it doesn’t matter. Friends, yes."

"He knows?"

"And I’ve got the bruise to prove it."

"What?"

I turned my head so that he could see the beginnings of the large black and blue mark on my right cheekbone where Lucius had hit me.

James took deliberate steps toward me and then his arms were around me, and he was hugging me tightly into him. I smelled his smell, and for some reason, my knees went weak, and I felt like I was crumbling. I pressed my face into his shoulder and pinched my eyes shut tightly, letting him hold onto me, letting him take away my pain…

Dinner ended and all of the doors to the Great Hall opened as people streamed out of them to return to their dorms to finish their packing for the holidays. It didn’t matter, though. James never let go of me.

People were all around us, moving like some stream of flesh, but James and I were perfectly still and perfectly silent.

We were all that there was.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

"So," I said.

"So," James said back.

"This is good bye, then."

"It’s more of a see you later."

"Right. A see you later. Yeah."

"I’m coming back, you know. Don’t look so downtrodden."

I grinned. "I’ll be counting the days."

"Your sarcasm stings, Miss Evans," he grinned back.

"You’ve got to watch that razor sharp wit, Mr. Potter," I retorted, "Might poke someone’s eye out."

"Call me crazy, but I think I just might miss you," he said.

"Me and all my abuses? Come now."

He gave me a genuine smile and his eyes sparkled, shifting almost imperceptibly from green-flecked brown to the color of honey. Taking each of my hands in his own, he just stood for a minute, looking me over and studying my face.

While I pretended to study him back and enjoy the moment, my thoughts shifted to something much darker.

_ When he returns, I’ll have to give him hell… _

"Lily," he said, "is there anything you want to tell me?"

I blinked. "No. Why do you ask?"

"You can tell me anything right now, good or bad, and I swear I’ll listen, take it in, and let it go if I have to. You can tell me anything you need to."

"I don’t need to tell you anything, James."

"Are you positive about that? There isn’t… anything?"

"No," I frowned. "I don’t know what you’re talking about."

He sighed, and stared at some place above my head for a minute. I could tell he was gritting his teeth.

"Good bye then, Lily," he said after a moment, stirring himself into action, his eyes drifting back down to meet my inquisitive gaze.

"Don’t you mean see you later?" I forced a smiled through equally gritted teeth.

"Yeah," he said, giving me a funny look. "See you later."

Before I realized what was happening, he moved closer and planted a soft kiss on my forehead, squeezing my hands tightly in his and then releasing them. His eyes met mine as he took a step back and picked up his suitcase.

I stood perfectly still.

Awkwardly, he turned his back, and walked away. I stood watching him until I was quite sure he was gone.

And then I put my hand to my mouth, shut my eyes tightly, and allowed the pain to flood into my body.

He would never know how much it _hurt_.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

Absentmindedly, I allowed my fingers to turn over and over each other, fidgeting left and right as I took one look at the sky and another at my feet and another at Hogwarts castle, looming ahead of me. Since James had left a heavy dose of depression had set in—a feeling of isolation. My friends were gone and I was at Hogwarts for Christmas for the first time in three years.

The snow on the ground looked like salt.

Still fidgeting, I began to walk back towards the castle, sure I was already late for dinner. I didn’t really feel like eating but I knew I needed to. Eating, even by myself in a hall scattered with people who I didn’t know or care about me even at Christmastime, was better than freezing outside in the cold as the sun set with only a very light jacket to keep out the breeze.

I had James on my mind.

I stuffed my hands in my pockets as the breeze shifted, ruffling my hair with its cold caress, and paused for a moment as I imagined James’s warm hands cupping my chin… his eyes, bright and happy and sincere, looking into mine. A smile would be playing at his lips.

Like always, he would be focused intently on me.

Sighing, I quickly gave up the reverie and finished the walk to the door that would give me passage back into the castle. I opened it, its rusty bolts creaking, and slipped inside, shutting out the salt-snow that had covered the trees and the hills and James’s Quidditch pitch. It was warmer inside, but not much.

I needed a love song.

My steps sounded small and insignificant as I walked along the stone pathway, heading toward the Great Hall. I wondered if anyone had ever felt as oddly by themselves as I did right then.

I opened the doors to the Great Hall just wide enough to slip inside, and saw that I was indeed late.

There were more people than I thought staying at school for the holidays. It took me a moment to realize that the reason there were so many was because a lot of people’s families had been killed over the past year.

With this thought weighing on my shoulders, I slid into a seat at the very end of the Gryffindor table, pulling my little jacket more tightly around me.

How was _my_ family? Mother, Petunia…?

I shook that thought out of my head too. I had had a choice. I could’ve gone back home if I’d have wanted to, but being with my mother and sister would have left me numb and mentally broken down. I’d made the right decision to stay at school.

No regrets, right?

That’s really easy to say and very hard to actually live.

I lost myself in more daydreams about James, the way his hair fell across his forehead and the way his eyes danced all around… The words he said, the passion he lived with, our strange history, the day he’d asked me if I’d believed in magic when he threw his invisibility cloak around me…

My heart ached for him.

I missed him horribly. I had no idea that it would matter to be away from him at Christmas, but somehow, I’d grown accustomed to him and his family and all of the weirdness that went along with the Potter family’s house. I missed the random drop-ins from Remus and Sirius.

Sirius.

I thought of Arabella and Sirius, in Italy by now, maybe kissing in a gondola under the star-studded sky, or maybe checking into a hostel, or maybe Sirius was buying her a rose and she was kissing him and loving him more than she’d ever thought possible.

What was love? How could they be so strongly connected, so powerfully together…?

Remus. I remembered the kisses, the lake, the feeling that I could be so close to him and that he could take away all the pain and confusion that was going on in my life. I remembered the feelings of sincere compassion for him, like when he’d told me that he was a werewolf, and I remembered the urges I’d had to hold his hand and not let go of it.

It was hard not to cry.

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

I sighed as the Gryffindor portrait swung shut behind me. As I pulled off my coat and flung it haphazardly on the nearest couch, I looked around me and listened to the quiet flickering of the fire in the fireplace. It was warm in the common room, but lonely. There was not a sound to be heard except the fire, and I suddenly wondered whether James was having a good Christmas or not.

He hadn’t sent me a present.

Everyone else who had stayed for the holidays was still down at dinner. While I thought of all the cheer those people had, I started picking off clothing as I walked through the common room, shedding my scarf on a chair and my shoes on a table. My socks were pulled off by a lamp.

It felt so little like Christmas. There were beautiful decorations everywhere and the mantle was dripping with holly. Little lights blinked every which way, but they just seemed pretentious and unimportant to me that year.

My legs felt weak and I began to feel a little lightheaded. I needed to sit down. Though I cast around for a chair, I couldn’t see any that looked suitable. I swayed, shifting my weight from foot to foot, pressing my hands to my eyes.

I had reached a low point.

At last I walked over to a couch and lay down on it. It felt uncomfortably stiff beneath me although I’d always known it to be quite plush. I felt defeated and tired, though not sleepy, and began to wish with fervency I’d had somewhere to go this year for the holidays.

I suppose I could’ve really gone to James’s if I’d asked him, but I would’ve never been able to live that down. I could’ve definitely gone to Lucius’s manor, but I doubted I would have felt much more cheery there. I thought of Sirius and Arabella, spending Christmas only with each other in some romantic Italian getaway, and I thought of Remus and his new girlfriend, probably snuggled together somewhere opening presents.

Earlier that morning I’d opened the presents I’d received. They were nice. Arabella had given me a new photo album with a picture of her and Sirius waving at me from the first page and a lovely, expensive sweater she’d bought me the day they’d arrived in Venice. Sirius had sent a new wizarding camera to go along with the photo album, but had not included a note. I supposed he was too preoccupied to remember silly things like Christmas letters.

Remus had mailed a cardboard box that had to be carried by no less than four owls because of its weight. It was an apology present. It was heavily taped but not wrapped. Inside there were small, sentimental things—sprigs of wild flowers from his mother’s garden, a small leather date book with my birthday circled in green pen, a music box that played a mournful, romantic tune, a little clock that ticked incessantly, white candles, and a few little figurines that danced together when you placed them on a flat surface. There was a letter explaining that I was all the little things, sweet and old-fashioned, and so he thought it fitting to give me gifts that suited me.

That had made me smile in spite of myself.

Lucius had sent me an expensive tiara that looked as if it was studded with real diamonds. It was lavish, flamboyant, and something that I had no use for. I kept it in its glass case, almost afraid to touch it in case I dropped it, and resolved to give it back to him when he came back to school.

It was a beautiful crown, but I wasn’t a queen.

In a way it was the best gift I’d received—certainly worth the most, and the most beautiful to look at, and probably the most generous. But it really meant very little to me; I knew that the Malfoy family had countless frivolous things like that. How much love had it really been sent with? It’s very easy for someone to spend a lot of money on you to try to impress you with the financial burden they’ve placed on themselves, and though that’s nice, it isn’t romantic.

I would have rather had a single sprig of wild flowers (like the ones Remus had sent) than that sparkling, cold, meaningless tiara. And so, I didn’t touch it.

Earlier that evening I had carried some buttercups down to dinner with me. I pulled them out of my pocket and had seen that they were prettier than glossy diamonds. I smelled the wild flowers and hoped Remus was happy. If I closed my eyes and imagined hard, I could still taste him on my lips from that night we’d kissed in the Hogwarts lake. I thought of his body and of his extremely handsome face and I thought of him and his new girlfriend and how so suddenly he’d become the first half of a couple.

The entire world was in love except for me.

I sat up, tired of pressing my head into a couch that felt too hard.

That was when I saw it. In the center of the well-polished coffee table, something was glinting in the firelight. I leaned forward, peering curiously in the dimly lit room, and saw that there were three things on the table.

There was an envelope that read _For Lily_ , a single calla lily, and three very shiny golden bangle bracelets. Nonplussed, I reached for them. I stood up, bracelets, flower, and envelope in hand, and moved to sit before the fire so that I could see better. I sank to my knees and dropped the flower and bracelets on the floor.

With a sudden burst of dread and stomach butterflies, I recognized the writing on the envelope. It was James Potter’s.

I turned the envelope over and found that it was unsealed. Inside was a single piece of parchment. At first a flutter started in my stomach. I thought he’d written me something at least interesting—and so I was disappointed when only a few sentences were scrawled before his signature.

_ Dear Lily, _

_ There is so much that I want to say, but you don’t like to listen to me these days. You said we were friends again. This is because I will always want more. I am missing you to death. _

_ With love, _

_ James Potter _

I swallowed hard. "This is because I will always want more," I said aloud to myself, and felt a knot beginning to twist around somewhere deep in my stomach. "Why does he have to say things like that? Why did he have to do this at all?"

I picked up the flower and smelled it. Calla lilies have a very subtle scent, but I focused all I could on it and tried to melt myself away as I breathed it in. After I gathered myself together and was sure I wouldn’t start to cry, I placed it on the hearth and picked up the three bangle bracelets.

They were extremely simple. There was nothing extraordinary about them like the silver and diamond tiara Lucius had given me, but they glittered warmly in the firelight and sparkled everywhere I looked.

They definitely weren’t much. They weren’t as heartfelt as Remus’s presents or as expensive as Lucius’s, or as useful as Sirius and Arabella’s. I slipped one on and watched as it spun around on my wrist. I turned my hand over again and again, making the golden bangle dance.

Biting my lip, I slipped on the second. They looked right together, so I slipped on the third too. I turned my hand over and over again, watching quietly as they moved.

I was alone with a flower and three bracelets and a letter that meant nothing.

It was not at all a merry Christmas.

I was sixteen years old.

And then, without warning, things suddenly became more meaningful than I’d ever imagined they could. I was physically struck by some strange, unseen force, and I flew backwards, knocking my head against the coffee table where I’d found James’ gifts. Before I could even scream, something warm and sweet kicked in. The room smelled like lilies, like everything, everywhere was covered in them…

I tried to open my eyes and found I couldn’t, tried to move my arms to check to see if my head was bleeding, and found I was paralyzed.

Emotions started to cloud my thoughts—a frightening wave of them, none of which were my own. I screamed internally, terrified at the thought of things so foreign taking over my body, but my horror was washed away with a feeling of such amazing tenderness that I quickly forgot my head, my eyes, and my fears.

Resignedly, I gave into the curious sensations. I had no choice.

First came something soft and concerned, checking me over to make sure I was okay from the fall. It reminded me of something nearly maternal. I felt something so purely emotional that it almost felt physical.

The most wonderful feeling of love washed over me; love and concern… It was something I had never, ever, ever experienced before. It was the missing piece of my puzzle. It was all the love I’d never had from my family, the cure to the drifting loneliness I’d always experienced with my friends, the source of the problem with my relationship with Lucius Malfoy.

My whole body tingled. I was getting thrills. I suddenly knew that I was loved.

I took in a deep, shaking breath, and suddenly my eyelids were thrown open. I saw the world around me in vivid color. My vision darted every which way—toward the fire, big flames leaping everywhere and lapping at the darkness, battling it, killing it, winning—toward the couches, distorted with a brilliant coloring and lit up with some faint, dusty aura. The carpet warmed around me. I moved my legs and arms, experiencing what it was to be alive, purely, for the first time since infancy.

The feeling changed into something deeply wounded and I gasped for air. It felt like my heart was being pierced by something icy and pointed… an icicle spear. I watched in sudden, blind terror as the fire went out before my eyes and blackness seeped in, faster than I could’ve ever imagined, everywhere. I shut my eyes in fear but found that I couldn’t tell whether they were open or closed—it was the same on the inside as it was outside. All the colors had disappeared. All that existed was black.

I saw inside myself. _My heart was black and dead and slowly decaying…_

I opened my mouth to scream in horror but I was stifled, and this time not in a good way. I had fallen into a void.

Physical ripping pain exploded everywhere in my body and I achieved a mental agony I never fathomed existed. I prayed, suddenly, for death. Anything was better than being ripped to shreds… anything… I had to stop the pain.

I clawed at my own body, at my own face, trying to tear away the pain and hurt and confusion, and then I was on my knees, sobbing, all my limbs shaking, choking and retching, and I could see again. The fire was bright and undisturbed. I rolled onto my side and clutched at my chest. I could feel my heart pounding inside.

And then something the color of light washed over me, bathed me in radiance and healed my scorns and hurts and soothed away my fears and concerns. I lay there, staring blankly at the arched ceiling of the Gryffindor common room, and let the light trickle back inside of me.

I felt myself smiling but I didn’t know what I was so happy for. I smiled so big that my cheeks began to hurt from the strain. And I took deep, slow, gasping breaths… I hugged my arms around myself and let the light encompass me.

Suddenly, I was glowing. I was filled to the brim with this light, this unknown source of completion, and my breathing regulated, and the world tilted sideways.

The strongest force of anything I had ever known swept everywhere, carrying with it the essence of James.

In a moment of ecstasy, I felt his love.

It was something so pure, so beautiful, so moving, that tears sprung to my eyes and the world tilted back to where it was supposed to be.

It left me with one last mental embrace.

It was a long time before I could sit up again. Instead, I just lied there and cried.

When the last tear had pounded its way down my cheek, I lifted my wrist—something that felt so heavy and leaden without his essence around it—and pulled off the bangle bracelets, letting them fall heavily to the floor.

I stared upwards and could not believe I was alive.

James Potter was in love with me.

And he was perfect.

What had I done…?

 

 

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

 

Author's Note: Well, there it is. That's everything I have to date. Check back in a few days for new stuff. I'm so excited! :) R/R, please. 


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